Nichols Martin
Raytheon Technologies has been selected by the U.S. Space Force to design a satellite for the Department of Defense's weather prediction efforts.
The company said Wednesday its intelligence and space business will create a theater weather imaging and cloud characterization system prototype for the Next Generation Electro-Optical Infrared Weather Satellite as the military branch aims to increase the Earth observation data output from DoD systems.
“Understanding clouds and cloud movement could be used for things as simple as route planning for air-to-air refueling or to know where clouds might be covering an area of interest," said Wallis Laughrey, vice president of space and command and control systems at RI&S.
Laughrey envisions the system collecting information that can support weather forecasting and atmospheric studies.
RI&S aims to complete the TWICC design over an eight-month period and intends to apply imaging instruments such as the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite to the project.
