The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has awarded a $45 million contract to Raytheon Technologies’ intelligence and space business to design and establish the Earth Prediction Innovation Center that will facilitate collaboration among government, academia and industry stakeholders to come up with an Earth modeling system to improve weather forecasting.
“The creation of EPIC is a foundational piece in a major, multi-step effort by NOAA to expand and strengthen community modeling and help us accelerate the improvements in operational weather and climate forecasting,” Louis Uccellini, director of NOAA’s National Weather Service,” said in a statement published Monday.
“This effort will improve forecasts and decision-support activities to ensure communities are ready for, and respond to, oncoming extreme weather, water, and climate events,” Uccellini added.
Raytheon Intelligence and Space will use its experience in software infrastructure and engineering and support services delivery to advance work on EPIC, which is supported by the Weather Research and Forecasting Innovation Act of 2017.