SpaceQ Space news and analysis.
NASA has been evaluating a variety of commercial Earth observation providers including GHGSat to as part of its Commercial Small Satellite Data Acquisition Program.
Earlier this week NASA announced the group of companies that has been selected. Aside from GHGSat, six other companies, all U.S. based were selected including: Airbus DS Geo, Inc. of Herndon, Virginia, Capella Space Corp. of San Francisco, Maxar Intelligence, Inc. of Westminster, Colorado, Space Sciences and Engineering (dba PlanetiQ) of Golden, Colorado, Spire Global Subsidiary, Inc. of Vienna, Virginia, and Umbra Lab, Inc., of Santa Barbara, California.
It was just over a year ago that NASA had selected GHGSat to provide a “comprehensive catalogue of Earth Observation data High Resolution Gas Detection Commercial Earth Observation Data products” to evaluate the companies data. That contract was a “fixed-price blanket purchase agreement and each call issued is not to exceed $7 million over a five-year period.”
Then in June of this year GHGSat received a task order for further evaluation of their data whereby “GHGSat will deliver both new observations and archival data for a CSDA scientific evaluation team consisting of researchers from NASA centers, other U.S. government agencies, and academia. Research projects supported by the GHGSat data will include studies of anthropogenic and naturogenic methane emissions over land and water at sites in the United States and around the world.”
In an email with a representative of GHGSat, SpaceQ was told that this “selection positions GHGSat for routine sales post evaluation.”
GHGSat will now be a part of the pool of seven companies that will have access to the programs funding which has a $476 million USD maximum potential value. The contract runs for five years with an option to extend for an additional six months. Awards will be fixed-price with indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity and multiple-award contracts.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this story made mention that NASA had completed the evalutation of GHGSat data when in fact that process is ongoing.
