Maritime-focused US-based satellite data start-up Spire has revealed plans to launch 20 nanosats before the end of the year to collect weather data.
Spire said its launches were already arranged, although did not say how the satellites, which are the…
Maritime-focused US-based satellite data start-up Spire has revealed plans to launch 20 nanosats before the end of the year to collect weather data.
Spire said its launches were already arranged, although did not say how the satellites, which are the size of a shoebox, would be lofted into low-Earth orbit.
The nanosats will utilise GPS signals and employ a technique pioneered by NASA in the late 1960s called GPS radio occultation.
The system works by a GPS satellite sending a signal to a Spire satellite. On its journey through the atmosphere the signal is refracted and how its route is affected, by temperature and water vapour, will be read by the Spire nanosats. As the positions of the respective satellites move, different sections of the atmosphere can be scanned multiple times to build a picture of meteorological conditions.
Spire says its swarm will be able to collect and relay 10,000 readings a day, improving on the 2,000 readings per day available from a collection of publicly-funded weather satellites.
“It’s not good enough to simply accept that over 30% of the US GDP, or US$5.7tn, is impacted by weather and climate – we want to do something about it,” said Spire CEO Peter Platzer in a statement.
Last summer the company re-branded as Spire, from Nanosatisfi, and announced that it had raised US$25m in Series A funding. Initially incubated by hardware accelerator Lemnos Labs, the company has raised US$29m to date.
The San Francisco-based venture’s investors include RRE Ventures, Moose Capital, Quihoo and Mitsui & Co Global Investment.