Ramona Adams
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has awarded contracts to GeoOptics and Spire Global worth $695,000 and $370,000, respectively, to provide data support for NOAA’s Commercial Weather Data Pilot project.
NOAA said GeoOptics and Spire Global will supply space-based global navigation satellite system radio occultation data in efforts to demonstrate the quality and potential value of commercial data to the agency’s weather forecasts and warnings.
The agency has tasked the contractors to complete data delivery through April 30, 2017.
The National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service will then assess the data through fiscal year 2017 and produce the final report in fiscal year 2018, NOAA said.
The agency noted the program aims to give commercial firms a trial run of NOAA’s evaluation process to drive the sustained operational use of commercial weather data.
NOAA awarded the contracts to GeoOptics and Spire Global Thursday through the Federal Business Opportunities website.
CWDP aims to evaluate the viability of using commercial data to support NOAA meteorological models.
