NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver Visits SS/LPete Worden, NASA Ames Center Director; Lori Garver, NASA Deputy Administrator; Al Tadros, Vice President, Civil and DoD Business, Space Systems/Loral; Steve Jurczyk, NASA Langley Deputy Director. Photo credit: NASA/Eric James
NASA continues to partner with companies such as Space Systems/Loral to help strengthen U.S. leadership in space while at the same time stimulating job growth in careers related to science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).
Space Systems/Loral, a provider of commercial satellites, is currently working with NASA Ames to provide the propulsion system for the Lunar Atmosphere Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft. The propulsion system is based on a space-proven SS/L design that has been reconfigured to take a small spacecraft to the moon.
When launched, NASA's LADEE spacecraft will study the moon's thin atmosphere and dust above the lunar surface. The propulsion system and structure that is being built by SS/L is a variant of the mission critical system used over many years on SS/L's geostationary satellites.
There are currently 65 SS/L-built satellites orbiting Earth, and the company has logged more than 1,750 satellite years on orbit.
"The commercial satellite manufacturing industry is strong and over the past five years SS/L has created approximately 1,900 new engineering, manufacturing and support jobs," said John Celli, president of Space Systems/Loral. "It takes about one million labor hours to produce the type of large geostationary satellite that we build here in Palo Alto. We are extremely pleased to have the opportunity to show our very busy facility to Ms. Garver and to discuss potential areas where we can help support NASA in meeting its goals."
In addition to its work on LADEE, SS/L has a long history of working with NASA. SS/L was the provider of high-power batteries and power control equipment to the International Space Station and has provided the U.S. Government with a variety of space instruments including antennas on the Viking, Voyager and Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft and microwave ranging systems for the GRACE and GRAIL satellites. SS/L also provided five weather satellites built under contract to NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and launched between 1994 and 2001.
These Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) provided double their contracted lifespan and two of the SS/L-built satellites are still in use for critical meteorological monitoring functions.