Space Systems/Loral (SS/L) has been selected to provide a propulsion system to NASA Ames Research Center for the Lunar Atmosphere Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft. The contract demonstrates NASA’s success in leveraging the capability of commercially proven technology for U.S. Government missions.

NASA's LADEE spacecraft is a small observatory that will study the moon's thin atmosphere and dust above the lunar surface. The LADEE propulsion system will be a variant of the mission-critical system used over many years on SS/L’s geostationary satellites for television, radio, broadband internet, meteorology, and a host of other services. Currently there are 59 SS/L-built satellites orbiting Earth, and the company has logged more than 1,600 satellite years on orbit.