Press releases

Innovative TEMPO instrument will measure major air pollutants over North America at each hour of the day

WESTMINSTER, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Maxar Technologies (NYSE:MAXR) (TSX:MAXR) today announced that it will integrate and fly NASA’s Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) instrument on a 1300-class satellite in geostationary (GEO) orbit. TEMPO will be the first space-based instrument to provide hourly monitoring of major air pollutants during the daytime across the North American continent at high spatial resolution.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190722005572/en/

TEMPO is a UV-visible spectrometer that will observe Earth from a vantage point about 22,000 miles above Earth’s equator. It will detect pollutants by measuring sunlight reflected and scattered from Earth’s surface and atmosphere. The resulting data from TEMPO will be used to enhance air quality forecasts in North America, enabling more effective early public warning of pollution incidents.

Maxar previously completed a study to accommodate TEMPO on a commercial GEO satellite. Building on the successful completion of the study, Maxar has been selected to integrate and fly the TEMPO payload. The instrument is currently slated for launch by 2022.

“Maxar has more than half a century of experience developing and operating satellites and advanced infrastructure to unlock the promise of space for customers around the world. We have a long history of building meteorological spacecraft and instruments, including eight Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite Program (GOES) satellites for NASA,” said Megan Fitzgerald, Maxar’s Senior Vice President and General Manager of Space Solutions. “We’re proud to collaborate with NASA on TEMPO, which will provide critical insights on air pollution to enable impactful solutions for a better world.”

“TEMPO payload completed production and was fully qualified last year. Now, with Maxar leading the charge on integrating TEMPO onto a commercial satellite, the mission will rapidly progress to launch and operations,” said Stephen Hall, NASA’s TEMPO Project Manager.

“Finding the right commercial partner to integrate our payload was of utmost importance to us, and Maxar’s strong legacy in bridging commercial and government needs made it the perfect candidate. TEMPO will revolutionize the way NASA samples and analyzes critical air quality measurements,” said Kelly Chance, Principal Investigator, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. “Critical partners in the analyses of TEMPO data include the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), plus U.S. universities and foreign partners, including Mexico and Canada.”

To identify a host, NASA employed the streamlined U.S. Air Force Hosted Payload Solutions (HoPS) contract vehicle to solicit proposals from commercial companies to provide satellite integration, launch services and ground operations. With decades of experience in building both GEO and low Earth orbiting satellites, including more than 90 GEO satellites on orbit today, Maxar is uniquely positioned to help government agencies obtain access to space for instruments, sensors, and other small missions on commercial spacecraft.

The operations of DigitalGlobe, SSL (Space Systems Loral) and Radiant Solutions were unified under the Maxar brand in February; MDA continues to operate as an independent business unit within the Maxar organization.

About Maxar Technologies

As a global leader of advanced space technology solutions, Maxar is at the nexus of the new space economy, developing and sustaining the infrastructure and delivering the information, services, systems that unlock the promise of space for commercial and government markets. The operations of DigitalGlobe, SSL (Space Systems Loral) and Radiant Solutions were unified under the Maxar brand in February; MDA continues to operate as an independent business unit within the Maxar organization. As a trusted partner with 5,900 employees in over 30 global locations, Maxar provides vertically integrated capabilities and expertise including satellites, Earth imagery, robotics, geospatial data and analytics to help customers anticipate and address their most complex mission-critical challenges with confidence. Every day, billions of people rely on Maxar to communicate, share information and data, and deliver insights that Build a Better World. Maxar trades on the New York Stock Exchange and Toronto Stock Exchange as MAXR. For more information, visit www.maxar.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements and other information included in this release constitute "forward-looking information" or "forward-looking statements" (collectively, "forward-looking statements") under applicable securities laws. Statements including words such as "may", "will", "could", "should", "would", "plan", "potential", "intend", "anticipate", "believe", "estimate" or "expect" and other words, terms and phrases of similar meaning are often intended to identify forward-looking statements, although not all forward-looking statements contain these identifying words. Forward-looking statements involve estimates, expectations, projections, goals, forecasts, assumptions, risks and uncertainties, as well as other statements referring to or including forward-looking information included in this presentation.

Forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ materially from the anticipated results or expectations expressed in this presentation. As a result, although management of the Company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which such forward-looking statements are based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements because the Company can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. The risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations include, but are not limited to, the risk factors and other disclosures about the Company and its business included in the Company's continuous disclosure materials filed from time to time with U.S. securities and Canadian regulatory authorities, which are available online under the Company's EDGAR profile at www.sec.gov, under the Company's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com or on the Company's website at www.maxar.com.

The forward-looking statements contained in this release are expressly qualified in their entirety by the foregoing cautionary statements. All such forward-looking statements are based upon data available as of the date of this presentation or other specified date and speak only as of such date. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements in this presentation as a result of new information or future events, except as may be required under applicable securities legislation.

 

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190722005572/en/

Media Contact
Omar Mahmoud
Maxar Media Relations
1-650-852-5388
omar.mahmoud@maxar.com

Investor Relations Contact
Jason Gursky
Maxar VP Investor Relations
1-303-684-2207
jason.gursky@maxar.com

Source: Maxar Technologies