NOAA Awards 4th Delivery Order Under Radio Occultation Data Buy II
On September 4, 2024, the NOAA Commercial Data Program awarded its fourth Delivery Orders under the Radio Occultation Data Buy II (RODB-2) Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract. NOAA awarded two firm-fixed-price contracts totaling $10,376,950 to Space Sciences and Engineering LLC (PlanetiQ) of Golden, Colorado, and Spire Global Subsidiary, Inc., of Vienna Virginia, to supply radio occultation data to NOAA over a one-year period.
Under DO-4, NOAA will acquire 3,000 near-real-time global navigation satellite system radio occultation (GNSS-RO) data profiles per day to support operational weather forecasting. PlanetiQ received a contract for $6,544,450 to provide 2,200 GNSS-RO profiles per day. Spire Global received a contract for $3,832,500 to provide 800 GNSS-RO profiles per day.
The data delivery period shall be for 365 days running from Wednesday, September 18, 2024, through Thursday, September 18, 2025. The contract awards implement a global data sharing license that allows NOAA unlimited distribution rights for the data acquired.
The funds for this DO-4 award are $7,376,950 from the NOAA Commercial Data Program and $3 million from the U.S. Air Force (USAF) Commercial Weather Data Pilot Program. NOAA, USAF, and the U.S. Navy will utilize these data to ingest into their numerical weather prediction models. In addition, various U.S. government and international government agencies utilize these data for operational and research purposes.
Background
In March 2023, NOAA awarded two, five-year RODB-2 IDIQ contracts with a total maximum value of $59,312,954 to Space Sciences and Engineering LLC (PlanetiQ) and Spire Global Subsidiary Inc. To date, four Delivery Orders off of the RODB-2 IDIQ contracts have been issued, and future orders will be released at NOAA’s discretion.
The NOAA Commercial Data Program (CDP) includes two lines of effort. The Commercial Weather Data Pilot project includes demonstrations of the quality and impact of commercial data on weather forecast models; the Commercial Data Purchase project supports operational weather forecasting. NOAA first began using commercial RO data in its operational weather forecasts on May 20, 2021.
Through CDP, NOAA continues to implement the Weather Research and Forecasting Innovation Act of 2017 (P.L. 115-25), which directs NOAA to obtain commercial weather data from private sector providers following pilot assessments that demonstrate commercial sector readiness. NOAA’s CDP has successfully engaged the commercial sector through a competitive process and has acquired operational satellite data-as-a-service. Commercial RO data constitute an important addition to NOAA’s portfolio of environmental observations, which help improve weather forecasts and reduce risk to the overall observing system.
As the National Weather Service (NWS) has previously determined that 3,000 RO profiles are sufficient to positively impact numerical weather prediction (NWP) forecasts, NOAA opted to extend the DO duration to meet the NWS requirements and directly respond to requests from the commercial sector for longer DO durations. Thus, we have changed our procurement from 6,000 RO profiles per day over 6 months to 3,000 RO profiles per day over 12 months, which provided the necessary flexibility for the longer DO duration.
In general, the number of profiles per day purchased is determined for each DO by:
- The need for and relative impact of the data as determined by the end users’ requirements (in this case NWS).
- The ability of commercial vendors to consistently deliver the purchased quantity.
- The value of additional commercial data types with validated impacts on the NOAA mission, and the projected funds needed to procure those data.
- The current CDP funding availability.
CDP will continue to reassess these criteria for future DOs. NOAA will purchase an appropriate amount of RO soundings consistent with the selection criteria identified above.