On June 23, Vienna, VA-based Spire Global, Inc. announced it was awarded a $6 million, 12-month contract extension from NASA to continue its participation in the agency’s Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition (CSDA) Program.
Spire will continue to deliver a comprehensive catalog of Earth observation data, associated metadata, and ancillary information from its constellation of 100+ multipurpose satellites. The data provided will include:
- Surface data, Spire’s GNSS Grazing Angle Reflectometry data (GNSS-R), to measure sea ice extent, classification and altimetry, soil moisture, and ocean surface wind speed;
- Atmospheric data, Spire’s GNSS radio occultation (GNSS-RO) soundings, for weather forecast models to improve global weather forecasting accuracy;
- Space weather offering measurements of electron density and scintillation that allow researchers to monitor the ionosphere as well as prepare for and react to weather events in space; and
- Domain awareness including satellite state vector, altitude and precise orbit determination (POD) data to correct errors in orbital drag models.
Spire’s data will be available for scientific purposes to all federal agencies, NASA-funded researchers, and U.S. government-funded researchers.
“The CSDA Program offers Earth observation data that is critical to the efforts of U.S. government agencies and researchers working to solve some of the biggest challenges we face, such as climate change,” said Chuck Cash, vice president of federal sales, Spire. “The program is a great example of how partnership between the private and public sector can accelerate our path to building a better, more sustainable future.”
NASA launched the CSDA Program in 2017 for the purpose of acquiring commercial datasets that support NASA’s Earth science research and application goals. Commercial datasets provide a cost-effective means to augment the suite of Earth observations acquired by NASA, other U.S. government agencies, and international partners and agencies.
“NASA is continuing our relationship with Spire Global via the CSDA program for another year. These data continue to be leveraged by NASA and its funded researchers, as well as other partners throughout the U.S. government,” said Will McCarty, the CSDA program scientist at NASA Headquarters. “We exploit these observations to better understand the physical processes associated with our Earth’s atmosphere and surface, as well as to observe and understand the solar-driven space weather at the boundary between the Earth’s atmosphere and space.”
Source: Spire Global
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