TIROS AWARDED $31.2 AWARD FEE CONTRACT MODIFICATION
Sunnyvale, Ca., 08/30/2007 -- The TIROS Program has been awarded a $31.2 Million Cost Plus Award Fee contract modification from NASA and NOAA. This modification moves the planned launch date of the TIROS N Prime Spacecraft from December 2007 to February 2009 at the request of the government. This launch date extension is made possible by the excellent on-orbit performance of the NOAA-18 (TIROS-N) satellite. The NOAA-18 satellite was built by Space Systems Sunnyvale, and launched on May 20th, 2005.
The mission of the TIROS satellite constellation is to provide uninterrupted flow of global environmental data in support of operational requirements for Global Soundings and Imagery, Global and Regional Surface & Hydrological Observations, Data Collection from terrestrial buoys, Search and Rescue missions, and Space Environment and Ozone Observations.
The N Prime Spacecraft is fully assembled and is currently undergoing Environmental Testing in Sunnyvale. The first phase, consisting of acoustic, sine vibration and pyro-shock testing is complete. The TIROS team is currently preparing the spacecraft for thermal vacuum testing. Following the completion of environmental testing, the spacecraft will be placed in storage for five months, beginning in March 2008. When storage is complete, the spacecraft will undergo final preparations and then will be shipped to Vandenberg Launch Base for launch on a ULA Delta II booster. Once on-orbit the spacecraft will be designated NOAA-19.
