BOULDER, Colo.—The University of Colorado has signed a contract worth about $92 million to work with two federal agencies on a satellite project to forecast solar disturbances affecting communications and other systems.
CU-Boulder’s contract with NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is for an instrument package to be designed and built at the school’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. The space-weather package would be launched on future generations of NOAA satellites.
The package will consist of an X-ray sensor to look at solar flares and an extreme ultraviolet sensor to monitor sunlight variation. Both can disrupt communications and navigational accuracy of equipment and vehicles operating on land, sea and in the air and space.
The contract calls for the delivery of the first instrument package in 2012 and options for three additional packages to be delivered over the subsequent decade.
