On Sept. 18, 2026, NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) Commercial Data Program (CDP) announced three base contract awards totaling $67,053,698 for two years, to purchase a total of 10,000 near-real-time Global Navigation Satellite System Radio Occultation (GNSS-RO) data profiles and 500 Total Electron Content (TEC) ionospheric measurements per day. These measurements will enhance weather forecasting and space weather applications.
Task Order 1 (TO-1) is NOAA’s first two-year data buy, awarded under the recently announced Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services Program (ProTech) 2.0 Space-Based Environmental Monitoring (SBEM) Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract. This award includes options to procure additional data as required by NOAA. This task order also includes the purchase of RO profiles with improved temporal resolution to enhance weather forecasts.
Spire Global of Vienna, VA is awarded $33,158,160 to provide 5,300 GNSS-RO profiles per day, of which 1,100 are radio occultation profiles with temporal resolution enhancements.
Space Sciences and Engineering, Inc, dba PlanetiQ of Golden, CO is awarded $28,413,038 to provide 4,200 GNSS-RO profiles per day, of which 700 are radio occultation profiles with temporal resolution enhancements, and to provide 500 low-latency TEC tracks per day.
Ethereal Space, Inc. of Greenwood Village, CO is awarded $5,482,500 to provide 500 GNSS-RO profiles per day.
Data delivery for Spire Global and PlanetiQ will occur over a 24-month period, from Dec. 1, 2026 to Dec. 1, 2028. Ethereal’s order incorporates a 35-day data preparation period, with data delivery scheduled from Jan. 5, 2027 to Dec. 1, 2028.
Radio occultation is a remote sensing technique that measures how radio waves bend and slow down as they pass through the Earth's atmosphere and ionosphere. NOAA uses this satellite data to derive atmospheric temperature, pressure, and moisture parameters for weather forecasting and ionospheric parameters, such as TEC, for space weather applications.
TEC observations measure electron density across different layers of the ionosphere. Severe spikes or depletions in TEC in the Earth’s atmosphere can serve as an early indicator of space weather activity, such as solar flares, coronal mass ejections, or geomagnetic storms.
NOAA will use the data in numerical weather prediction models and for space weather applications. In addition, various U.S. government and international government agencies use these data for operational and research purposes.
NOAA NESDIS’s authority to manage the CDP is pursuant to the Weather Research and Forecasting Innovation Act of 2017 (Weather Act, Public Law 115-25, as amended), 15 USC § 8532, and the Promoting Research and Observations of Space Weather to Improve the Forecasting of Tomorrow Act (PROSWIFT Act, Public Law 116-181), 51 USC § 60607. These statutes direct NOAA to assess and, where appropriate, procure commercial weather and space weather data to support operational weather and space weather applications.
The Commercial Data Program (CDP) assesses and acquires space-based observational weather data from the private sector to improve NOAA’s weather forecasts and explore ways to meet mission requirements more efficiently.
