Lockheed Martin has been awarded a $2.5 million contract by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to execute an End-to-End Architecture Study of the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-R) program.

The Architecture Study covers work in four task areas: Space & Launch, C3, Product Generation & Distribution, and End-to-End Integration. Its purpose is to assist NOAA in identifying system architecture alternatives, refining known designs, uncovering innovative, integrated architectures, and leveraging potential opportunistic technologies that may provide increased weather and environmental forecasting capabilities at increased mission cost savings.

At the conclusion of these studies, NOAA will modify its requirement for the GOES-R space, launch, command and control, and data production segments to help reduce future design, development, cost and schedule risks. The study results will ensure that viable architectural options are available to integrate the meteorological data acquired from space remote sensors, with the ground acquisition systems, and link it to the ultimate products delivered to the users.

"We're extremely pleased to be participating in the GOES-R program," said Jim Crocker, Lockheed Martin Space Systems vice president of civil space. "Reaching across the Lockheed Martin Corporation, we will be able to bring decades of relevant experience to the service of the GOES mission."

Data from NOAA's GOES spacecraft provide short-term advance weather warning products to the commercial, educational, and public sectors to protect lives, property and the environment, and to foster economic growth and promote educational research. The future GOES-R mission is expected to improve the quality and timeliness of its forecasts, expanding the safety and economic security of the public.

Along with the Polar Operational Environmental Satellite (POES) and Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) polar orbiting weather satellites currently built by Lockheed Martin, GOES is a critical part of the U.S. satellite constellation for weather observations. GOES is the weather satellite most familiar to the American public, as GOES images and time-lapse sequences are the primary visual material of television weather forecasts. The GOES system, which has been operational since 1975, plays a critical role in weather and environmental forecasting. In orbit, high above the equator, GOES satellites are uniquely positioned to observe the development of hazardous weather, such as hurricanes and severe thunderstorms, and to track their movement and intensity so that major losses of life and property can be reduced or avoided.

The GOES satellites, by definition, operate in a geostationary Earth orbit (GEO). A satellite at GEO, flying from west to east at an altitude of 22,241 miles above the equator, circles the Earth once each day at the same speed at which the Earth is turning. Thus, to an observer on the surface, the satellite would appear to hover in the same spot in the sky.

Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company is one of the major operating units of Lockheed Martin Corporation. Space Systems designs, develops, tests, manufactures, and operates a variety of advanced technology systems for military, civil and commercial customers. Chief products include a full-range of space launch systems, including heavy-lift capability, ground systems, remote sensing and communications satellites for commercial and government customers, advanced space observatories and interplanetary spacecraft, fleet ballistic missiles and missile defense systems.

Headquartered in Bethesda, Md., Lockheed Martin employs about 125,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture and integration of advanced technology systems, products and services. The corporation reported 2002 sales of $26.6 billion.