Spire Expands Contract with NASA for Earth Observation Data
Spire Global, Inc. (NYSE: SPIR) announced a contract extension with NASA for the Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition Program, focusing on the SNOOPI mission. This mission aims to measure root-zone soil moisture using P-band signals from a satellite in low Earth orbit. Spire's technology allows deeper soil measurements compared to previous methods, aiding in agricultural forecasting and flood prediction. NASA integrates Spire's data into various research applications, enhancing atmospheric analysis and providing critical insights for climate change adaptation.
- Contract extension with NASA enhances Spire's involvement in significant scientific research.
- The SNOOPI mission represents a technological advancement, enabling deeper soil moisture measurements.
- Integration of Spire data into NASA's research enhances its applications in climate change.
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The mission is focused on demonstrating a new remote sensing technique for measuring soil moisture to collect data for applications like agricultural production forecasting and flood prediction
As part of the mission, Spire performed a custom collection of ultra high frequency (UHF) and P-band data for the SNOOPI team. The lower frequency of P-band signals allows the radio emissions to penetrate farther into the soil than L-band signals, enabling the team to obtain measurements deeper below the surface when compared to modern L-band remote-sensing techniques employed by NASA’s Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS).
“The SNOOPI mission is the first demonstration of measuring root-zone soil moisture from space using signals of opportunity that are important for detecting early drought warnings as well as crop-yield forecasts,” said
“Spire’s UHF collection, which we believe to be the first ever collection of reflected P-band signals in orbit, enabled the SNOOPI team to reduce risk and check our basic working principles prior to our launch,” said
Through the CSDA Program, NASA has integrated Spire data into its research and applications portfolio by using space-based data to investigate water and sea ice levels in the polar regions, estimate the height of the Planetary Boundary Layer (PBL), and discern daily variability of thermospheric density at satellite flight level. NASA also noted that Spire data has shown positive benefit to its GEOS Atmospheric Data Assimilation System, which uses space-based data to analyze the Earth’s atmosphere by assimilating the data into its Earth modeling and analysis system. As one of the original vendors for the CSDA Program, Spire provides NASA yearly updates to the scope of work under this agreement to ensure alignment of data to the agency’s needs.
SNOOPI is led by
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Spire (NYSE: SPIR) is a leading global provider of space-based data, analytics and space services, offering access to unique datasets and powerful insights about Earth from the ultimate vantage point so that organizations can make decisions with confidence, accuracy, and speed. Spire uses one of the world’s largest multipurpose satellite constellations to source hard to acquire, valuable data and enriches it with predictive solutions. Spire then provides this data as a subscription to organizations around the world so they can improve business operations, decrease their environmental footprint, deploy resources for growth and competitive advantage, and mitigate risk. Spire gives commercial and government organizations the competitive advantage they seek to innovate and solve some of the world’s toughest problems with insights from space. Spire has offices in
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