NASA Selects Launch Services Provider for Earth Imagery Satellite

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA’s Launch Services Program office at the Kennedy Space Center, Fla., has selected Lockheed Martin Commercial Launch Services of Littleton, Colo., for launching of the Landsat Data Continuity Mission.

The $124 million contract award is a competed firm-fixed-price task order. It includes launch services for an Atlas V model 401 rocket, payload processing, launch vehicle integration, and the necessary tracking, data and telemetry support. The spacecraft is scheduled to be placed into a 428-mile-high polar sun synchronous orbit in July 2011, lifting off from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.

The Landsat Data Continuity Mission will extend the more than 30-year record of high-quality land surface measurements from previous Landsat satellites. NASA researchers use these unique data products to study, understand and predict the consequences of land surface changes.

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., manages procurement and acquisitions for the Landsat Data Continuity Mission in partnership with the U.S. Geological Survey. The U.S. Geological Survey will manage the satellite after launch and in-orbit checkout.