A Boeing-led team received a $10 million, six-month contract to define a next-generation weather satellite for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Boeing announced Nov. 3.

The Program Definition and Risk Reduction contract is a study contract for the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-R). The goal of the contract is to analyze the GOES-R requirements and develop a solution to meet those requirements through advanced sensing technology, ground data processing, communications and command and control. GOES-R is expected to be launched in 2012.

Boeing’s team members include Harris Corp., Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Atmospheric and Environmental Research Inc. and Carr Astronautics.

NOAA has awarded similar GOES-R contracts to Lockheed Martin and the team of Northrop Grumman and Raytheon.