NASA has indicated its intent to award Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC) a sole-source contract to continue helping the agency operate and maintain an Earth observation satellite built to primarily measure ice sheets.
The agency said Tuesday in SAM notice it would task the company's space systems business to perform engineering work to ensure operational health and safety of the Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation spacecraft.
ICESat-2, which launched in September 2018 aboard United Launch Alliance's Delta II rocket, employs a space laser instrument developed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center to provide topographic measurements of Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.
Northrop designed and built the spacecraft based on the company's LEOStar-3 platform.
