University of New Hampshire Secures $107.9 million NASA Contract

The University of New Hampshire has been awarded a highly competitive contract of $107.9 million to develop its Geostationary Littoral Imaging and Monitoring Radiometer (GLIMR) mission. The mission will be led by Dr. Joseph Salisbury, a research associate professor at UNH. UNH secured the award after prevailing over seven other finalists. This award represents the largest NASA award for UNH as well as the second highest contract NASA has awarded to a university in the past decade.

“If you look at what the University of New Hampshire has done historically for NASA, whether it’s heliophysics, the study of the sun, or in astrophysics, the study of the interstellar medium and how it interacts with our own solar system, when it comes to the delivery, on time and on budget, and payloads on other missions, the University of New Hampshire has just a stellar record.”

GLIMR will help UNH study coastal ecosystems by providing ocean biology, chemistry and ecology in the Gulf of Mexico, parts of the southeastern United States coastline, and the Amazon River plume. This will provide NASA with research and data to understand the workings and health of ocean ecosystems.

In addition, GLIMR will aid understanding of how carbon from the ocean goes into the atmosphere and how it goes into the ocean. NASA will be observing the ocean in different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum to study algal blooms which can be damaging to humans. Changes in the climate, earth, and other elements necessitates GLIMR; it will help NASA understand these changes and their interactions with each other.

Read the full article from Fosters here.