CU Boulder instruments destined for space station reach Florida … – Boulder Daily Camera

A solar instrument package designed and built by the University of Colorado and seen as key to monitoring the Earth's climate has arrived at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida in preparation for a launch in November.

Known as the Total and Spectral Solar Irradiance Sensor, designed and built by CU's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics for NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., it represents a $90 million contract value to LASP, along with an associated mission ground system, according to a news release.

TSIS-1, as it's called, is scheduled to launch in November on a commercial SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in a Dragon capsule, destined for the International Space Station.

CU Professor Peter Pilewskie, of LASP, the mission's lead scientist on the project, said TSIS will continue a 39-year record of measuring total solar radiation, the longest continuous climate record from space, the release stated.

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CU Boulder instruments destined for space station reach Florida ... - Boulder Daily Camera