Anna Forrester
The Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman team has delivered to the U.S. Air Force the payload for the next geosynchronous Earth orbit satellite of the Space Based Infrared System.
SBIRS’ prime contractor Lockheed said Wednesday that the payload is fitted with a scanning sensor to perform wide-area surveillance of missile launch operations and a staring sensor to focus on smaller areas with heightened infrared sensitivity.
The team delivered the payload on Sept. 30 and is now working on final assembly, integration with the GEO-4 satellite bus and testing at Lockheed’s satellite manufacturing facility in Sunnyvale, California, the company said.
Louie Lombardo, director of Lockheed’s SBIRS follow-on production program, said the team expects to deliver the complete SBIRS GEO-4 satellite in 2016.
Lockheed and payload provider Northrop work with the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center’s Remote Systems Directorate as team lead and the Air Force Space Command as SBIRS system operator.
