RTX's Blue Canyon Technologies selected by NASA

RTX's (NYSE: RTX) small satellite manufacturer and mission services provider, Blue Canyon Technologies, was selected to build two 12U CubeSat buses for NASA's PolSIR mission, which will study ice clouds that form at high altitudes throughout tropical and subtropical regions. In addition to designing and manufacturing the bus platforms, Blue Canyon will also provide mission operations services.

The PolSIR instrument –Polarized Submillimeter Ice-cloud Radiometer– will observe the full diurnal cycle of high-altitude ice clouds to improve climate forecasts and provide climate models with important insights into how Earth's atmosphere will change in the future.

"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 be equipped with radiometers that will observe the clouds' daily cycle of ice content through two separate wavelengths in two spectral bands and will fly in orbits separated by three to nine hours. Over time, these two instruments will observe the clouds' daily cycle of ice content.

NASA Goddard will provide the project management team that builds the two instruments for the Principal Investigator-led mission from Vanderbilt University, and science operations will be conducted by the Space Science and Engineering Center at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.