NASA has used Spire data in its research regarding water and sea ice levels in the polar regions, and the height of the Planetary Boundary Layer (PBL).
Spire Global, Inc., a global provider of space-based data and analytics, has announced the continuation of its participation in NASAs Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition (CSDA) Programme with a $6m contract extension.
The CSDA allows NASA to acquire commercial Earth Observation (EO) data that supports its Earth science research. Spire was one of the original vendors of the CSDA programme, and NASA has used its data for various research topics including water and sea ice levels in the polar regions.
Under CSDA Programme TO6, Spire will deliver a comprehensive catalogue of data, associated metadata, and ancillary information from its Earth-orbiting small-satellite constellation. For TO6, Spire will provide rolling access to 12 months of radio occultation data with a 30-day latency. This data will be archived and maintained by NASA under the CSDA Programs SmallSat Data Explorer (SDX) database.
Speaking about the contract, Peter Platzer, CEO of Spire, said: Programmes like CSDA highlight the incredible potential of private-public partnerships in the federal government to drastically accelerate our ability to confront some of the greatest challenges of our time, such as climate change. With the end-user license agreements, our data is now available to all federal agencies and the larger NASA scientific community to help support Earth observation research across fields.
Will McCarty, Project Scientist at the CSDA Programme and Research Meteorologist at NASA Global Modeling and Assimilation Office, added: At NASA, the CSDA Programme has continued to blossom as a valuable resource to our team for our Earth observation research and analysis. We are committed to growing the programme as well as continuing the work we have started. Spire has been a valued partner through CSDAs development since its inception, and with this additional task order, we are excited about the new insights and results that will come not only from within NASA but also through broader collaboration through the domestic government scientific community.
NASA has used Spire data in its research regarding water and sea ice levels in the polar regions, the height of the Planetary Boundary Layer (PBL), and the day-to-day variability of thermospheric density at flight level.
