NOAA Awards Commercial Weather Data Pilot Round 2 Contracts
On September 17, 2018, NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) awarded contracts to GeoOptics, Inc., Spire Global, Inc., and Space Sciences and Engineering LLC as part of the Commercial Weather Data Pilot Round 2.
Building on the CWDP Round 1 purchase and evaluation of radio occultation data, Round 2 incorporates additional operational considerations for a second radio occultation data purchase and evaluation period. NOAA will use CWDP Round 2 to (1) evaluate the data’s impact on NOAA’s numerical weather prediction models to further support the demonstration of radio occultation data, and (2) develop internal infrastructure needed to pursue procurement of commercial radio occultation data for operational use.
GeoOptics, Spire Global, and Space Sciences and Engineering will each provide space-based GNSS radio occultation data to NOAA for the purpose of demonstrating data quality and potential value to NOAA’s weather forecasts and warnings. The companies have until July 31, 2019, to complete the delivery of their data. NESDIS will conduct an assessment of the data through the beginning of FY 2020 and will produce its final report in mid FY 2020.
Further information on the contract awards is available at SAM.gov.