Location plays a big part in new smallsat venture…
NASA has selected seven companies to provide Earth observation and other data through a contract that has a five-year potential value of $476 million among the selected contractors. At least two companies are providing the agency with location information.
The following companies were selected as part of an open competition in the Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition Program:
- Airbus DS Geo.
- Capella Space Corp.
- GHGSat.
- Maxar Intelligence.
- PlanetIQ.
- Spire.
- Umbra Lab.
For its part of deal, Spire SPIR 0.00%↑ will provide NASA with its GNSS radio occultation (GNSS-RO) soundings, which can be integrated into weather models for forecasting accuracy, the company said. Spire will also offer GNSS Reflectometry data (GNSS-R) to measure sea ice, soil moisture and ocean surface wind speed.
Another company, PlanetIQ, will provide NASA with weather tracking using GPS-radio occultation techniques.
NASA started the the program in 2017, when it awarded contracts to PlanetIQ, Maxar and Spire. The agency requires end user license agreements for dissemination and shareability of the commercial data.
