US: Lockheed Martin has delivered the second Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) instrument it was preparing for the next-generation Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-S) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The sensor will provide earlier alerts of severe storms by tracking in-cloud lightning which precedes severe weather on the ground. It would provide NOAA with faster warning plus more precise location information versus current systems.
The GLM instrument is made up of a high-speed (500 frames per second), 1.8 megapixel focal plane, which is integrated with low-noise electronics and specialized optics to detect weak lightning signals, even against bright, sunlit cloud backgrounds. The Lockheed Martin team took 13 months for the assembly, integration, test and delivery of the instrument, a 40% reduction on the build and test time.
Source: Lockheed Martin
