New Ocean Instrument — NASA’s GLIMR — Moves a Step Closer to Launch
NASA’s GLIMR instrument — short for Geostationary Littoral Imaging and Monitoring Radiometer — is moving to its building phase. Originally selected in 2019, GLIMR recently underwent a review known as Key Decision Point C – which evaluated the instrument’s preliminary design and project plan to deliver the instrument by January 2025. On March 21, GLIMR was approved to go forward with the final design and fabrication of the instrument, within the principal investigator-managed cost cap of $109.8 million.GLIMR is an Earth Venture Investigation. Such investigations are small, targeted science investigations that complement NASA’s larger Earth-observing satellite missions – and they seek to balance high-risk and innovation with the ability to successfully produce world-class science. As such, a decision about procuring access to space – and associated costs — has been postponed for an additional review when the instrument is mature enough to better asses the risk associated with it. The GLIMR instrument will be launched into a geostationary orbit where it can monitor a wide area — which includes the Gulf of Mexico, the coastlines along the US East and West coasts, and the Amazon River plume — for up to 15 hours a day. Its observations of ocean biology, biogeochemistry, and ecology will include identifying and tracking harmful algal blooms and oil spills, as well as studying processes associated with rapid changes in phytoplankton growth. The instrument will fill a gap in our ability to monitor and analyze dynamic coastal zones by measuring wavelengths of sunlight scattering out of the surface layer of the ocean. Such observations of coastal ecosystems can provide crucial information for waterside communities affected by population growth and changing climate. From geostationary orbit – in which a satellite maintains a view of the same area on Earth throughout its orbit – GLIMR will be able to gather many observations of the same area, tracking changes throughout the day at a high resolution. In addition to how such data can be used by scientists to better understand the fundamental processes of the ocean, GLIMR’s tracking of the movement and magnitude of harmful algal blooms and oil spills will be made public for anyone to use. Such observations can provide institutions with actionable, near-real-time information that could affect human health and businesses on land. Earth Venture investigations are cost-capped and schedule constrained. The missions are managed by the Earth System Science Pathfinder program office at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, for the Earth Science Division under the Science Mission Directorate.
