Spire Global Provides Weather Data at Altitude to Support Hypersonic Flight
Stratolaunch will use Spire’s weather solutions to provide accurate forecast modeling 24 kilometers above the earth’s surface at their hypersonic flight launch site
VIENNA, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Spire Global, Inc. (NYSE: SPIR) (“Spire” or the “Company”), a leading global provider of space-based data, analytics, and space services, has announced a new weather customer, Stratolaunch, a Southern California air-launch hypersonic test provider.
Stratolaunch requested reliable weather data across flight altitudes that are available globally. Spire will initially provide 55 discrete vertical levels of forecast data as well as the surface forecast for Stratolaunch’s test operations off the coast of California.
“Weather conditions can have adverse impact on flight and launch missions, sometimes postponing them minutes before their scheduled launch time,” said Kevin Petty, VP of Weather for Spire. “Our weather data from space provides a more accurate composite of weather forecasts at specific altitudes allowing aerospace solutions like Stratolaunch more confidence in their safety and operational decision-making.”
Spire’s fully deployed constellation of over 100 satellites uses radio frequency sensors to create a 3D profile of atmospheric temperature, pressure, and humidity over 20,000 times per day. By using radio occultation in addition to weather balloons and other sources of publicly available weather observations, Spire’s forecast provides much greater accuracy and depth even in remote areas and on the open ocean.
“Spire’s data will provide key weather information for our hypersonic flight test operations, improving upon the radiosonde weather balloon data historically used in flight test,” said Brandon Wood, Hypersonics Program Director for Stratolaunch. “Improved spatial and time resolution data will give us higher confidence in the weather conditions when flying our Talon-A hypersonic vehicles.”
About Spire Global, Inc.
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 multi-purpose 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 San Francisco, Boulder, Washington DC, Cambridge, Ontario, Glasgow, Luxembourg, and Singapore. To learn more, visit http://www.spire.com.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220203005117/en/
For Spire Global, Inc.:
Andrew Cameron
andrew.cameron@spire.com
Source: Spire Global, Inc.
Released February 3, 2022