Blue Canyon to supply spacecraft buses for NASA's PolSIR mission
by Clarence Oxford
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Jun 13, 2024

RTX's (NYSE: RTX) small satellite manufacturer and mission services provider, Blue Canyon Technologies, has been chosen to construct two 12U CubeSat buses for NASA's PolSIR mission. This mission aims to study ice clouds that form at high altitudes in tropical and sub-tropical regions.

Blue Canyon will design and manufacture the bus platforms and provide mission operations services.

The PolSIR instrument - Polarized Submillimeter Ice-cloud Radiometer - will observe the full diurnal cycle of high-altitude ice clouds to enhance climate forecasts and offer climate models with valuable insights on atmospheric changes.

"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.

Each spacecraft will carry radiometers to observe the clouds' daily cycle of ice content through two separate wavelengths in two spectral bands. They will fly in orbits separated by three to nine hours. Over time, these instruments will monitor the clouds' daily ice content cycle.

NASA Goddard will manage the project, building the instruments for the Principal Investigator led mission from Vanderbilt University, with science operations conducted by the Space Science and Engineering Center at the University of Wisconsin - Madison.

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