Executives at Northrop Grumman Corp. see climate change driving its satellite business to new heights due to increasing concern over global warming.

Sprawling across a corner of Northrop’s vast Redondo Beach campus is its 350,000-square-foot satellite manufacturing center. The facility was renamed Environmental Center for Observation Systems last week, and employs about 500 people. The center will now concentrate on climate-monitoring technology.

“We have the technology to monitor the Earth from space, which in conjunction with observations from air, land and ocean sources, provides a comprehensive picture,” said Alexis Livanos, head of Northrop’s space technology sector.

A 2007 report sponsored by the United Nations focused attention on the economic impact of global warming, leading to renewed concerns and calls for action. The U.S. economy is highly dependent on weather and climate-sensitive industries such as agriculture, construction, shipping and even finance and insurance.

The report stated that nations have a 10- to 15-year window in which to change their practices to avert a global warming disaster. As a result, experts now see action on the issue as more of a national defense function and less of a research function.

That is where Earth-observing satellite systems come into play. There are currently about 100 Earth-observing satellites in space; “Earth-observing” is the industry term for satellites with environmental applications, as opposed to military or telecommunications orbiters. They produce data that is essential to scientists, the military and industries that are affected by weather and climate. Also, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is the source of climate information, gets 99 percent of its data from satellites.

And about half of all environmental satellites in orbit are past their life cycle limit meaning they will need to be replaced.

“The government spends about $2.5 billion per year on Earth-observing satellites,” said Maureen Heath, a spokeswoman for Northrop’s civil systems business development sector. “That just isn’t enough. That needs to double.”

The satellite business has been a boost for Northrop’s balance sheet.

Second quarter sales in the company’s space technology sector increased 5 percent compared with the same quarter in 2007.

“This is a growth vehicle for Northrop,” Heath said. “We expect to see much more activity in this sector during the next administration. Once an administration gets a plan of attack in place for combating global warming, you’ll see the funding and we’ll be well-positioned to help in any way we can.”

Not all are so sanguine. Marco Caceres, a senior analyst with Fairfax, Va.-based aerospace industry think-tank the Teal Group is skeptical as to Northrop’s prediction for the amount of growth in the sector.

“Show me a commercial application for the data acquired from these satellites and I’ll get excited about the business prospects,” he said. “Until then, I see little growth in the industry.”

Analysis and action

“While reducing greenhouse gases is always a good idea, we still don’t know conclusively what is happening and how to counter it,” Heath said. “So, the more data we acquire, the more we will be able to combat the problem.”

The satellite industry goes in cycles, Caseres said.

“In the ’60s, and ’70s it was exploring the universe and in the ’80s, the ‘Star Wars’ era was ushered in,” he said, referring to the space-based missile defense program.

Northrop was one of the leading providers of satellites that were designed to protect the United States from a nuclear attack. The company sees a similarity in protecting the Earth from global warming.

“Global warming is no longer a ‘green’ issue; it’s an economic and national defense issue,” Heath said.

Northrop has been making Earth-observing satellites designed to monitor various aspects of the planet’s climate since 1959 two years after the Soviet Union first launched Sputnik, the starting shot in the space race.

Northrop has made more than 65 satellites at the Redondo Beach facility. Its latest project is the National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System.

The first satellite in the $8 billion program is scheduled for launch in 2012. It will be the first satellite that is designed to provide data for both military and scientific applications.

“It is a revolutionary system,” Caceres said. “But it was also very expensive and extremely behind schedule.”

A special feature of the polar satellite is its data transmission technology.

The satellite will be able to send some data to processing stations within five minutes. That’s about five times faster than current technology allows. Most data, about 95 percent, can be transmitted within 28 minutes, about twice as fast.

“The speed of data transfer is so crucial because it can be used by the military to update battle-field information and will allow weather forecasters to update models with much more accuracy,” said Sally Koris, a spokeswoman for Northrop’s Space Technologies sector.