Boulder, Colorado (ap) - The University of Colorado-Boulder has received a $42 million contract from NASA to develop an instrument that will orbit earth to monitor changes in the sun's radiation and help evaluate climate change.
The instrument to be developed by CU's Laboratory for
Atmospheric and Space Physics will fly on the national polar-orbiting operational environmental satellite system. The lab will design, construct and test the instrument.
Associate professor Peter Pilewskie says the sensor will help continue three decades of monitoring solar radiation from space. He says accurate measurements of natural climate forces are needed to assess how people are affecting the climate.
NASA is developing the instrument, called Thetotal and Spectral Solar Irradiance Sensor, in an agreement with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
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