NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s Rapid Spacecraft Development Office (RSDO) awarded delivery orders to four contractors for the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) Spacecraft Accommodation Study on April 30.

“The LDCM project is excited about working with industry during this initial phase of the spacecraft procurement,” said Bill Ochs, LDCM project manager.
Delivery orders for the four-month effort were awarded to Ball Aerospace Technologies Corporation, Boulder, Colo.; General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems, Gilbert, Ariz.; Orbital Sciences Corporation, Dulles, Va.; and Space Systems/Loral, Palo Alto, Calif.
The participants will each study how their spacecraft can accommodate the mission-unique requirements of the LDCM Operational Land Imager (OLI) instrument, and provide a point design of the implementation. The studies will also address specific LDCM implementation and architecture issues, mission integration and tests, and several other programmatic items.
A “Request for Offer” to implement the spacecraft is planned for release in the fall to select the contractor who will build the spacecraft, integrate the OLI, provide launch support, and oversee mission operations for the first ninety days after launch.
LDCM will ensure the image records of the previous Landsat satellites operated by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) over the past 30 years continue into the next decade. The LDCM project is managed by Goddard’s LDCM Project Office. USGS’s Center for Earth Resources and Observation Science is responsible for managing, developing, and implementing LDCM operations.