[SatNews] Space Systems/Loral (SS/L) has announced its support for NASA's new direction in conjunction with the preliminary design review for the propulsion system that it is building for a spacecraft that will study the lunar atmosphere. May 19 marked an important milestone in SS/L's contract to provide a propulsion system to NASA Ames Research Center for the Lunar Atmosphere Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft.

The review confirmed the preliminary design of the propulsion system meets all system requirements and it supported authorization to begin the final design phase of the project. The progress made demonstrates NASA's success in leveraging the capability of commercially proven technology for U.S. Government missions.

In another recent project in support of NASA's space exploration mission, SS/L provided a high-gain Ka-band antenna that is now providing data from the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) that is studying how solar variations influence life on Earth. SDO was launched earlier this year and has started to provide dramatic images of the Sun containing crucial scientific data.