Tag: weather satellites

General Atomics to Build Electro-Optical Infrared Weather System Prototype for U.S. Space Force

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SAN DIEGO, Calif., 04 August 2020 (General Atomics PR) — General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) announced today that it has been selected for the United States Space Force Electro-Optical Infrared (EO/IR) Weather System (EWS) satellite program under the Space Enterprise Consortium (SpEC). GA-EMS will design and manufacture a prototype spacecraft, integrate the EWS payload and provide on-orbit mission control services to support the collection of theater weather imagery and cloud characterization data for worldwide military operational use.

“In addition to our ongoing Orbital Test Bed programs like the Multi-Angle Imager for Aerosols (MAIA) for NASA and Argos 4 for the United States Air Force, GA-EMS is pleased to support critical space missions,” stated Scott Forney, president of GA-EMS. “With EWS we will continue to leverage our expertise in developing scalable architectures and volume-efficient packaging, as well as our expanding satellite manufacturing capabilities to rapidly design and deliver an EO/IR satellite solution to meet the proposed EWS launch date in 2022.”

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NOAA’s JPSS-2 Satellite Instruments Ready for Delivery to the Spacecraft

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The Integrated Electronics Module was recently integrated on the JPSS-2 spacecraft. (Credit: Northrop Grumman)

by Peter Jacobs
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

GREENBELT, Md. — In four different U.S. cities are four shipping containers, each one carrying an instrument that will travel to space to capture critical data on our planet’s weather and climate. 

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EUMETSAT Shifts Weather Satellites to Ariane 6

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DARMSTADT, Germany — Meeting on 30 June in virtual configuration, the Council of Europe’s operational satellite agency for weather and climate, EUMETSAT, approved the transition plan from the second to the third generation of Meteosat geostationary satellites for 2022-2026.

As part of this plan, EUMETSAT will move Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) spacecraft Meteosat-9 over the Indian Ocean in 2022 to replace the ageing Meteosat-8 and continue MSG observations of that region until at least 2025. Meteosat observations of the Indian Ocean started in 1998 with a first-generation satellite, Meteosat-5.

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NASA Awards Contract for Earth Observing Satellite Instrument

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WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — NASA has awarded the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Atmosphere Science Investigator-led Processing System (SIPS) contract to the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin.

The total value of this cost-no fee contract is $17,084,053. The contract includes a base year that begins on July 1, and has four options to extend the contract through March 31, 2025.

The contractor will process and reprocess the data from the VIIRS instrument from the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) series of satellites. The contractor will deliver Earth Observing System (EOS)-like standard and near real time atmosphere data products to the Earth Observing System Data and Information System as required by NASA Headquarters Earth Science Division for NASA researchers.

The JPSS missions are funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to provide global environmental data in low-Earth polar orbit in support of NOAA’s mission. NASA is the acquisition agent for the flight systems. NASA also acquires JPSS data for its research objectives.

NOAA Claims $735 Million in Savings on Polar Follow-On Satellite Program

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NOAA has reported that it has found $735 million in savings in the Polar Follow-on (PFO) weather satellite program.

In a letter to Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), NOAA Acting Administrator Neil Jacobs said the program life cycle cost (LCC) has been reduced from $7.57 billion to $6.84 billion for fiscal years 2016 through 2038.

“The PFO Program has performed exceptionally well and the new LCC has sufficient cost and schedule margin to mitigate risk due to the improved posture,” Jacobs wrote.

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NOAA Harnessing Power of New Satellite Data this Hurricane Season

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Hurricane Humberto (Credit: NOAA)

SILVER SPRING, Md. (NOAA PR) — With predictions for an above-normal 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, NOAA forecasters have added meteorological muscle from a new  combination of satellite data flowing into its computer models. 

The Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere and Climate (COSMIC-2) is a new fleet of six small satellites launched last June. Since May 26, the constellation has begun feeding more than 4,000 vertical sets of measurements of atmospheric temperature and humidity in the tropics and subtropics daily into our forecast models. Measuring the moisture in and around tropical cyclones is important because it is a key ingredient for their development and intensification.

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SMC Awards $309 Million Contracts for Rapid Weather Prototyping Efforts

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EWS Notional Distributed Architecture (Credit: SMC EWS Program)

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. (SMC PR) — The Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) has awarded three Other Transaction Authority agreements, totaling $309 million, to develop prototypes for the Electro Optical/Infrared (EO/IR) Weather System (EWS) program. The awardees, each a member of the Space Enterprise Consortium (SpEC), are:  

  • Raytheon Technologies
  • General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems Group (subcontractors: EO Vista/Atmospheric & Environmental Research (AER)/Braxton Technologies)
  • Atmospheric & Space Technology Research Associates (ASTRA) (subcontractors: Tyvak/Science & Technologies Corps (STC)/AER/Lockheed Martin)
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Final JPSS-2 Satellite Instrument Passes Readiness Test

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Cross-Track Infrared Sounder instrument built to fly on the Joint Polar Satellite System 2 spacecraft. (Credit: NASA)

By Jenny Marder
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

GREENBELT, Md. (NASA PR) — The Cross-Track Infrared Sounder (CrIS) instrument built to fly on the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS)-2 satellite is ready to ship to the spacecraft. CrIS has passed all of its readiness tests, completing its pre-ship review.

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NOAA Awards Space Weather Follow-On Lagrange 1 Magnetometer to Southwest Research Institute

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SILVER SPRING, Md. (NOAA PR) — NOAA has awarded the Space Weather Follow-On Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1) Magnetometer contract to Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) based in San Antonio.

NOAA has awarded the Space Weather Follow-On Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1) Magnetometer contract to Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) based in San Antonio, Texas through its procurement agent and acquisition partner, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

This is a cost-plus, fixed-fee contract with a total value of $12,862,664. The period of performance is 75 months.

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Earth Day at 50: Our Planet from Polar Orbit

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First complete view of the world’s weather, photographed by TIROS-IX, in 1965. This image was assembled from 450 individual photos from the satellite. (Credit: NOAA)

SILVER SPRING, Md. (NOAA PR) — As Earth Day celebrates its golden anniversary in 2020, NOAA too is celebrating 50 years of monitoring the Earth’s weather, climate, and environment—and taking steps to preserve them.

As Earth Day celebrates its golden anniversary in 2020, NOAA too is celebrating 50 years of monitoring the Earth’s weather, climate, and environment—and taking steps to preserve them. 

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NOAA Announces First Series of Awards for Future Observation Technology

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SILVER SPRING, Md. (NOAA PR) — NOAA’s Satellite and Information Service (NESDIS) announced the first in a series of contract awards to develop mission, spacecraft and instrument concepts for future Earth observation capabilities.

The new concepts NESDIS is considering in this initial round are atmospheric temperature and pressure sounding observations in low earth orbit (LEO) and broader mission approaches for geostationary earth orbits (GEO) and extended orbits (GEO-XO).

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NOAA Takes Next Step Toward New Ideas for Future Satellites

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An advanced meteorological satellite (Credit: NOAA)

WASHINGTON (NOAA PR) — NOAA has completed a review of the many responses from two Broad Agency Announcements, or BAAs, seeking fresh ideas for new instrument technologies and concepts for future use on its next-generation geostationary, extended orbit, and polar-orbiting weather satellites.

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