NASA Drops Plans to Fly Earth Science Instrument as Commercial Hosted Payload

upstart writes:

NASA drops plans to fly Earth science instrument as commercial hosted payload - SpaceNews:

An Earth science instrument selected by NASA several years ago to fly as a hosted payload on a commercial communications satellite may instead fly on a standalone spacecraft because of a lack of hosting opportunities.

NASA issued a solicitation Feb. 9 seeking information for what it called the GeoCarb Access to Space project. NASA is looking for information on prospective providers of spacecraft that could host the GeoCarb instrument for a launch that NASA would provide by the end of 2024.

NASA selected GeoCarb in 2016 as part of its Earth Venture line of missions and instruments. GeoCarb will monitor greenhouse gases as well as plant health and vegetation stress in North and South America from approximately 85 degrees west in geostationary orbit.

The agency's original plan was to fly GeoCarb as a hosted payload on a commercial communications satellite in GEO. For a time, NASA had an agreement with SES Government Solutions to host GeoCarb on an SES satellite.

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