General Atomics To Host MAIA Instrument On A Commercial Satellite

NASA has awarded a contract to General Atomics of San Diego, California, for services required to host the agency’s Multi-Angle Imager for Aerosols (MAIA) instrument on a commercial satellite in low-Earth orbit.

Work under this firm-fixed price contract begins Aug. 31 and continues through Aug. 30, 2027. The total value of this contract is approximately $38.5 million.

Specific contract services include: integration planning; contractor ground system design, integration, testing, and readiness; MAIA instrument-spacecraft integration, test, and pre-launch processing; spacecraft and launch vehicle; launch and MAIA in-orbit checkout; and on-orbit spacecraft operations to enable instrument operations.

MAIA will quantify the sizes, types, and amounts of particulate matter in air pollution to help researchers better understand the impact of pollution on human population health.

MAIA is an Earth Venture Instrument project within NASA's Earth System Science Pathfinder Program, located at the agency’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. NASA’s Earth Venture projects and investigations, selected competitively at regular intervals, address new scientific priorities using cutting-edge instrumentation carried on airborne platforms, small satellites, or as secondary instruments or hosted payloads on larger platforms.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, is responsible for MAIA instrument design, development and operations.

(Source: NASA news release)

FMI: www.nasa.gov