Instrument design and manufacturing company Orbital Micro Systems (OMS) has been awarded a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II Other Transaction Authority agreement by the US Space Force’s Space Development Agency (SDA).
The agreement was awarded to OMS for prototype design, production and testing of the Global Environmental Monitoring System – Passive and Exchangeable Advanced Radiometers for Low-Earth orbit (GEMS-PEARL) microwave imager and sounder payloads.
Under the agreement, OMS will build engineering prototypes of the GEMS-PEARL radiometers and perform extensive laboratory testing and characterization of key subsystems as well as validating the expected performance of retrieved environmental data products.
GEMS-PEARL is expected to produce key environmental data records (EDRs) such as ocean surface vector winds (OSVW), tropical cyclone intensity (TCI), and atmospheric temperature, water vapor and precipitation. The data derived from the instruments is all critical for monitoring and predicting environmental conditions.
“We are grateful for the opportunity to further the development of our novel instrument concepts that can support the US Warfighter with critical environmental data at a reduced cost per payload compared with legacy systems,” said Michael Hurowitz, CEO of Orbital Micro Systems parent company Weather Stream.
“It has been made clear that innovations in space-based environmental monitoring are significant priorities for the DoD, and we are eager to continue the development of reliable and cost-effective radiometric instrumentation that will address these needs.”
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