NASA selects RTX’s Blue Canyon Technologies to build Spacecraft for PolSIR Mission

NASA has selected Blue Canyon Technologies, a small satellite manufacturer owned by RTX, to provide multiple spacecraft buses for the PolSIR mission. The mission aims to study ice clouds that form at high altitudes throughout tropical and sub-tropical regions.

PolSIR, which stands for Polarized Submillimeter Ice-cloud Radiometer, will employ two 12U CubeSats equipped with radiometers to observe the daily cycle of ice content in the clouds. The spacecraft will fly in separate orbits, collecting data on the clouds across two spectral bands.

This data will be crucial for improving climate forecasts and providing climate models with valuable insights on how Earth’s atmosphere changes over time.

“Supporting this critical mission builds on our heritage of weather monitoring missions including TEMPEST-D and TROPICS,” said Chris Winslett, general manager of Blue Canyon Technologies.

The project is led by a team from Vanderbilt University, with NASA Goddard providing the project management team for building the instruments and the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Space Science and Engineering Center handling science operations.