Space Flight Laboratory (SFL) has been contracted by GHGSat Inc. of Montreal to develop the GHGSat-C1 and C2 greenhouse gas monitoring satellites.
GHGSat-D (aka CLAIRE).
Established in 1998, SFL specializes in implementing high-performance nano-, micro- and smallsat missions at low cost on tight schedules. SFL served as prime integration contractor for the successful GHGSat-D demonstration satellite, known as CLAIRE, launched in June of 2016. CLAIRE is a 15-kilogram, 20x30x40cm microsat based on SFL’s space-proven next-generation Earth Monitoring and Observation (NEMO) platform.
SFL has begun development of the GHGSat-C1 and C2 satellites at the firm's Toronto facility, with planned launches in late 2018 and early 2019, respectively. Serving as GHGSat’s first two commercially operating satellites, they will be identical to each other but contain incremental, yet significant, enhancements from the demonstration mission. SFL’s NEMO platform has been used on several other missions, including the NORSAT-1 and NORSAT-2 built for Norway by SFL for science, advanced ship tracking, and ship communication. The NEMO bus is also used in the upcoming HawkEye360 Pathfinder missions under development by SFL and Deep Space Industries of California.
Dr. Robert E. Zee, SFL Director, stated that the precise attitude control and target tracking capability of SFL's NEMO bus—rare among satellite platforms of this size—played a key role in the accurate pointing of the primary CLAIRE sensor.