[09-26-07 – Satellite Today] Lockheed Martin has been awarded a $178 million NASA contract to design and build an instrument for the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES)-R series, Lockheed Martin announced Sept. 25.

The Solar Ultraviolet Imager (SUVI) will be developed at Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Technology Center (ATC) in Palo Alto, Calif., the research and development organization of Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co.

GOES satellites provides short-term advance weather warnings. The program is managed by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which establishes requirements, provides funding and distributes environmental data for the United States. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., manages the SUVI instrument acquisition as a part of its support to NOAA’s development of the GOES-R satellite series.

The first GOES-R satellite is scheduled to be launched in December 2014.