US climate sensing start-up PlanetiQ has selected Blue Canyon Technologies (BCT) to build its weather satellite constellation. BCT will construct an initial 12 microsatellites to be launched in 2016 and 2017. Financial details of the contract were not…
US climate sensing start-up PlanetiQ has selected Blue Canyon Technologies (BCT) to build its weather satellite constellation.
BCT will construct an initial 12 microsatellites to be launched in 2016 and 2017.
Financial details of the contract were not disclosed. PlanetiQ’s president and CEO, Anne Hale Miglarese, previously told SatelliteFinance that the company’s business plan required around US$160m-US$185m to cover operating expenses, capital expenditures and working capital needs. However, this estimate has been significantly lowered since then.
PlanetiQ said it chose BCT due to its low-cost design approach and track record. The privately held company was recently awarded a contract by NASA to build a high performance nanosatellite for an Earth climate science mission.
PlanetiQ has already co-located its aerospace engineering team at BCT’s Boulder, Colorado facilities, where both the satellites and sensors will be manufactured and integrated. This partnership has already led to the reduction in the planned satellite size and weight without sacrificing any instrument capabilities.
The key part of the satellites is PlanetiQ’s Pyxis weather sensor, which tracks GPS signals travelling through Earth’s atmosphere and converts them into dense, precise measurements of global temperature, pressure and water vapour using a technique called GPS Radio Occultation (GPS-RO).
PlanetiQ’s planned microsatellite constellation will deliver over eight million observations per day of temperature, pressure and water vapour, more than 10 times the amount of data available from GPS-RO sensors currently on orbit.
Commenting on the constellation, Hale Miglarese said: “Weather is the next commercial space frontier, as demand grows not only for better forecasts of day-to-day weather, severe storms and hurricanes, but also for weather and climate data solutions that enhance weather readiness, support risk management and increase business intelligence.
“Together, PlanetiQ and BCT bring the innovation, technical expertise and experience to cost-effectively produce the high-quality data needed to transform the weather satellite industry and deliver unprecedented economic value.”
Hale Miglarese argues that the weather satellite market is following the pattern of the satellite imagery sector, transitioning from a pure governmental play to an increasingly commercial endeavour. She has previously urged the US congress to use its oversight of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to follow a similar model adopted by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and purchase services from the private sector.
PlanetiQ is not alone in seeking to tap growing government and commercial demand for weather and environmental data, US-based peer Spire revealed plans in late January 2015 to launch at least 20 nanosatellites before the end of the year to collect weather data via a similar GPS-RO solution. Other companies seeking to enter the market include GeoMetWatch, GeoOptics and Tempus Global Data.
