SDL Teams with GeoMetWatch to Provide Unprecedented Weather Data
The Space Dynamics Laboratory at the Utah State University Research Foundation today announced that it has teamed with GeoMetWatch to design and build weather sensing instruments.
GeoMetWatch last month received a license from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for the nation’s first Hyperspectral Imaging/Sounding System. The NOAA license permits GeoMetWatch to operate six geosynchronous satellites equipped with advanced weather instruments.
SDL will build the Sounding & Tracking Observatory for Regional Meteorology (STORM) instrument that will be the first in a series of the GeoMetWatch constellation of satellites. The STORM instrument will be based on the Geosynchronous Imaging Fourier Transform Spectrometer (GIFTS) instrument built by SDL earlier this decade. GIFTS was successfully tested and calibrated as an engineering demonstration unit to ground-validate technologies critical to NOAA’s Hyperspectral Environmental Suite program for the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite system.
“For more than five decades, SDL has been measuring the Earth’s atmosphere from space,” said John Elwell, SDL’s program manager for the STORM instruments. “SDL stands ready to continue our legacy as we design and build advanced weather instruments. Together with GeoMetWatch, we will enable forecasters to better predict the path of hurricanes, give emergency planners more accurate weather data, and alert forecasters to potential severe weather development locations.”
The first STORM instrument is scheduled to be delivered to GeoMetWatch in early 2014, and launched in late 2014. This instrument will demonstrate the capabilities of the overall program, including retrieval of high spectra and spatial temperature and water vapor atmospheric profiles, clear air wind profiles, and some trace gas concentration profiles, such as carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide.
GeoMetWatch is a privately held company focused on the commercial development of technologically advanced, space weather and environmental observation systems. The company’s products and services are available globally under an innovative fee-for-service data-buy model that enables its clients to meet their critical atmospheric data needs with optimum efficiency and affordability.
Founded in 1959, SDL has been responsible for the design, fabrication, and operation of thousands of sensors on more than 500 payloads ranging from aircraft and rocket-borne experiments to space shuttle experiments, small satellites, and satellite-based sensor systems.
GeoMetWatch last month received a license from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for the nation’s first Hyperspectral Imaging/Sounding System. The NOAA license permits GeoMetWatch to operate six geosynchronous satellites equipped with advanced weather instruments.
SDL will build the Sounding & Tracking Observatory for Regional Meteorology (STORM) instrument that will be the first in a series of the GeoMetWatch constellation of satellites. The STORM instrument will be based on the Geosynchronous Imaging Fourier Transform Spectrometer (GIFTS) instrument built by SDL earlier this decade. GIFTS was successfully tested and calibrated as an engineering demonstration unit to ground-validate technologies critical to NOAA’s Hyperspectral Environmental Suite program for the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite system.
“For more than five decades, SDL has been measuring the Earth’s atmosphere from space,” said John Elwell, SDL’s program manager for the STORM instruments. “SDL stands ready to continue our legacy as we design and build advanced weather instruments. Together with GeoMetWatch, we will enable forecasters to better predict the path of hurricanes, give emergency planners more accurate weather data, and alert forecasters to potential severe weather development locations.”
The first STORM instrument is scheduled to be delivered to GeoMetWatch in early 2014, and launched in late 2014. This instrument will demonstrate the capabilities of the overall program, including retrieval of high spectra and spatial temperature and water vapor atmospheric profiles, clear air wind profiles, and some trace gas concentration profiles, such as carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide.
GeoMetWatch is a privately held company focused on the commercial development of technologically advanced, space weather and environmental observation systems. The company’s products and services are available globally under an innovative fee-for-service data-buy model that enables its clients to meet their critical atmospheric data needs with optimum efficiency and affordability.
Founded in 1959, SDL has been responsible for the design, fabrication, and operation of thousands of sensors on more than 500 payloads ranging from aircraft and rocket-borne experiments to space shuttle experiments, small satellites, and satellite-based sensor systems.
Contact: Eric Warren, (435) 713-3054, eric.warren@usurf.usu.edu
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