NOAA NESDIS Commercial Data Program announces $6.4 million contract awards to support weather forecasting and space weather

On August 13, 2026, the NOAA NESDIS Commercial Data Program (CDP) announced two awards for the Radio Occultation (RO) Data Buy 2 (RODB-2) Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) Delivery Order 6 (DO-6) to both Spire Global and Space Science and Engineering LLC, dba PlanetiQ.

Spire Global of Vienna, VA is awarded $3,671,880 to provide 4,600 GNSS-RO profiles per day and 1,200 Temporal Resolution Enhancements.

Space Science and Engineering LLC, dba PlanetiQ, of Golden, CO is awarded $2,730,452 to provide 4,200 GNSS-RO profiles per day and 500 Total Electron Content (TEC) tracks per day.

This commercial data contract will serve as a bridge between RODB-2 and the new Space-Based Environmental Monitoring (SBEM) IDIQ. The awards total $6,402,332 and will support weather forecasting and space weather applications. The data delivery period will take place over 74 days, from September 18, 2026 through December 1, 2026.

These firm fixed-price contracts include:

• 10,000 near-real-time global navigation satellite system (GNSS) RO data profiles per day of neutral atmosphere data of which 1,200 are Temporal Resolution Enhancements, and
• 500 TEC ionospheric measurements per day with unlimited data rights.

NOAA, NASA, the U.S. Air Force, and U.S. Navy will ingest these data into their 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.

Radio occultation is a remote sensing technique that measures how radio waves bend and slow down as they pass through Earth's atmosphere. NOAA uses this satellite data to calculate atmospheric temperature, pressure, and humidity for weather forecasting.

NESDIS's authority to manage CDP is pursuant to P.L. 115-5, the Weather Research and Forecasting Innovation Act of 2017, as amended; and P.L. 116-81, the Promoting Research and Observations of Space Weather to Improve the Forecasting of Tomorrow Act. These statutes direct NOAA to assess, use, and where appropriate, procure commercial weather and space weather data to enhance forecasting capabilities. Appropriated funds specified for the Commercial Data Program were used to undertake this work.

Original post on www.nesdis.noaa.gov