Nasa has selected Ball Aerospace to proceed with three studies to develop future sustainable land imaging (SLI) technologies.

The studies include the Landsat Calibration Satellite (LCS), TransCal and Reduced Envelope Multispectral Infrared Radiometer (REMIR).

They will be used on future missions of the Landsat programme, which is a series of Earth-observing satellite missions jointly managed by Nasa and the US Geological Survey.

Ball Aerospace will leverage previous SLI Technologies, including its Operational Land Imager 2, which will fly on the Landsat 9 mission. The mission is scheduled for launch next year.

Ball Aerospace civil space vice-president and general manager Dr Makenzie Lystrup said: “We are honoured and excited that Ball was chosen by Nasa for three studies to explore next-generation technologies for the Landsat Program.

“These studies reflect the importance of continued advancement and the development of creative solutions.

“We are pushing the boundaries of what’s possible when it comes to innovating robust, precisely calibrated sensors in increasingly compact packages.”

Ball completed the final airborne science flights of two other Sustainable Land Imaging (SLI) technology demonstrations, namely the Reduced Envelope Multispectral Imager-Airborne (REMI-AB) and the Compact Hyperspectral Prism Spectrometer-Airborne (CHPS-AB) last month.

A partner of Nasa SLI-Technology programme, Ball Aerospace also developed the OLI instrument flying on the Landsat 8 satellite and the OLI-2 instrument for Landsat 9.