NASA said Tuesday that it had selected Lockheed Martin (New York Stock Exchange:LMT) to build the spacecraft for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Geostationary Extended Observations (GeoXO) satellite program.
The cost-plus-fee award contract is valued at approximately $2.27 billion and includes the development of three spaceships, as well as options for four additional ones. The expected contract performance period includes support for 10 years of in-orbit operations and five years of in-orbit storage, for a total of 15 years for each spacecraft.
The work will be performed at Lockheed's facility in Littleton and at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The scope of the contract includes the tasks necessary to design, analyze, develop, manufacture, integrate, test, evaluate and support the launch of the GeoXO satellites. It also includes the provision of engineering development units; supply and maintenance of ground support equipment and simulators; and provision of mission support operations at the NOAA Satellite Operations Facility in Suitland, Maryland.
NASA and NOAA oversee the development, launch, testing and operation of all satellites in the GeoXO program. The fourth and final spacecraft in the series, GOES-U, is scheduled to launch on June 25, 2024 from NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Florida.
The two organizations are working to ensure that the program's critical observations are in place by the early 2030s, as the GOES-R series nears the end of its operational life. The GOES-R mission provided the first observations of lightning from a geostationary orbit, the ability to detect remote wildfire ignitions, and unprecedented monitoring of severe weather conditions.
