SAN FRANCISCO — Firefly Aerospace gained a contract to launch Quicksounder, a prototype for the Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s next-generation of environmental satellites in low-Earth orbit. The worth of the award was not disclosed.
NASA awarded the contract to Texas-based Firefly on behalf of NOAA via the Enterprise-Class Acquisition of Devoted and Rideshare (VADR) launch providers contract. Via VADR, NASA awards fixed-price contracts for satellite tv for pc launches.
QuickSounder is the primary component of NOAA’s Close to Earth Orbit Community (NEON), a brand new technology of polar-orbiting climate satellites. The mission is meant to assemble climate knowledge for a lot of organizations together with the Nationwide Climate Service.
The Southwest Analysis Institute is constructing the QuickSounder satellite tv for pc to deal with an Superior Expertise Microwave Sounder engineering improvement unit refurbished by producer Northrop Grumman. QuickSounder is scheduled to launch no sooner than February 2026.
NOAA is working with NASA to hurry up improvement of small and medium-sized satellites to produce knowledge for climate forecasting, catastrophe administration and local weather monitoring. NASA will handle the event and launch of the satellites. NOAA will present funding and technical necessities, and handle post-launch operations.
VADR is a fixed-price indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract with a five-year ordering interval and a most whole worth throughout all contracts of $300 million.
