Systems/Loral Announces Milestone in NASA Ames Project, Praises Plans for Agency's New Direction

May 20, 2010

Space Systems/Loral (SS/L) today announced its support for NASA's new direction in conjunction with the preliminary design review for the propulsion system that it is building for a spacecraft that will study the lunar atmosphere.

"Space Systems/Loral has a long history of working with government agencies to provide industry solutions that meet or exceed mission requirements," said John Celli, president of Space Systems/Loral. "By leveraging the value of commercial space industry capabilities, the new plan for NASA will help the U.S. strengthen its leadership in space while at the same time stimulating job growth in the private sector."

May 19 marked an important milestone in SS/L's contract to provide a propulsion system to NASA Ames Research Center for the Lunar Atmosphere Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft. The review confirmed that the preliminary design of the propulsion system meets all system requirements and it supported authorization to begin the final design phase of the project. The progress made demonstrates NASA's success in leveraging the capability of commercially proven technology for U.S. Government missions.

In another recent project in support of NASA's space exploration mission, SS/L provided a high-gain Ka-Band antenna that is now providing data from the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) that is studying how solar variations influence life on Earth. SDO was launched earlier this year and has started to provide dramatic images of the Sun containing crucial scientific data.

"SS/L is pleased to support NASA in its robotic exploration missions, which are an important part of the Obama administration's new space policy," said Arnold Friedman, senior vice president of marketing and sales at Space Systems/Loral. "We applaud the new direction set out for NASA and believe that there are significant benefits to leveraging commercial space industry resources so that NASA researchers can focus on the development of groundbreaking technologies that will enable deep space exploration and human spaceflight."