Harris Sensor Boosts Japan's Environment Monitoring Effort

Harris Corporation (NYSE:HRS) has launched an advanced environmental monitoring sensor to support Mitsubishi Electric Corporation’s upcoming Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite-2 (GOSAT-2) project, significantly boosting Japan’s efforts to monitor greenhouse gases from space. The sensor will collect high-spectral resolution data.

The newly built TANSO-FTS-2 sensor will measure greenhouse gases in the atmosphere through daylight and darkness, collecting the high spectral resolution data in five bands. The spectrometer’s distinguished intelligent pointing system detects cloud-free areas of the atmosphere in real-time. The sensor was handed to Mitsubishi.

At the UN Summit on Climate Change in New York on Sep 22, 2009, the then Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama had envisioned a 25% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, relative to the 1990 level. Japan’s experts have been working on environmental improvement ever since. The GOSAT-2, which is being built by Mitsubishi for the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, is set to be launched in Japan’s fiscal 2018. The new satellite comes after almost a decade of successful operation of GOSAT “IBUKI”, the world’s first satellite to measure carbon dioxide and methane concentrations in the Earth’s atmosphere.

Japan’s relationship with Harris has long been documented. The company had earlier provided two advanced imagers for the Himawari-8 and 9 weather satellites in 2014 and 2016, respectively.

Harris has a successful Space and Intelligence Systems business segment, with an array of technologically sound and advanced instruments and relationships with major satellite providers. Last year, the company saw impressive growth in Classified programs owing to small satellites, space surveillance programs and like. Harris’ strategic investments in technology have enabled it to expand into a mission provider for small satellite, making it a preferred partner for large satellite systems.

Price Performance

Driven by such continued initiatives, the stock has outperformed the industry in the past year with an average return of 39.1% compared with 8.8% gain for the latter.

Zacks Rank and Stocks to Consider

Harris currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Some better-ranked stocks in the industry space are Comtech Telecommunications Corp. (NASDAQ:CMTL) , sporting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy); Motorola Solutions, Inc. (NYSE:MSI) and Ubiquiti Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:UBNT) , each carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Comtech has an expected long-term earnings growth rate of 5%.

Motorola has an expected long-term earnings growth rate of 8%.

Ubiquiti has an expected long-term earnings growth rate of 18.6%.

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