General Dynamics takes potential $150M NASA-USGS satellite management contract

General Dynamics has won a potential 10-year, $150 million contract to design and integrate a new satellite operations center for an ongoing land remote sensing data collection effort between NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey.

The USGS has tasked General Dynamics’ mission systems division to help run the current Landsat 8 mission from the ground and work to get the new USGS Landsat 9 satellite ready for launch and operations by 2020.

Two Landsat vehicles are currently in orbit. Landsat 8 launched in 2013 and current fuel projections have flight continuing well into the 2020s, while Landsat 7 launched in 1999 and is slated to end its mission in 2019 or 2020, the agency said in solicitation documents.

NASA and the USGS started the Landsat program in 1966 to connect government, commercial, civilian, military and educational users in the U.S. and worldwide to Earth imagery. The first Landsat satellite launched in 1972 and the program adopted its current name in 1975 from the original Earth Resources Technology Satellites Program.

Landsat’s sensor images work to document agriculture, geology, forestry, regional planning, education, mapping and global change research. Landsat images also information to the emergency response and disaster relief communities.

General Dynamics will perform the work at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The contract covers five base years with five additional one-year options.