The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is a U.S. government agency focused on science-based services and environmental intelligence. Within the space industry, NOAA plays a vital role in monitoring and forecasting space weather through its Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) and the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS). NOAA operates a network of satellites, including the GOES and DSCOVR, to track solar activity and its potential impacts on Earth, providing alerts and warnings to various sectors like satellite operations, power grids, and communication systems. NOAA collaborates with NASA and commercial partners on space weather programs like the Space Weather Next program, ensuring continuous space-based observations.
All verified mentions of this organization in source documents.
NOAA’s 2020 budget request includes $2,300,000 for a Joint Venture Partnership intended to bring in data from satellites flown by NASA and international partners.
NOAA’s Satellite and Information Service requested nearly $17,300,000 in its 2020 budget for initiatives to explore data partnerships, small satellites, and advanced technologies.
NOAA’s 2020 budget plan requested $3,000,000 for the Commercial Weather Data Pilot in 2020 and planned to spend $8,000,000 annually on the initiative from 2021 to 2024.
NOAA requested $5,000,000 in its 2020 budget to purchase Global Navigation Satellite System radio occultation data for operational use.
The Operational Satellite Improvement Program involved NASA and NOAA each contributing $15,000,000 per year between 1973 and 1981 for technologies including sensors to improve NOAA satellites.
NOAA’s 2020 budget request included funding to develop infrastructure and capability to securely import, transfer, process, store, and use external data from commercial partners for operational use.
NOAA awarded contracts with a combined value of more than $8,000,000 in 2018 to GeoOptics, PlanetIQ, and Spire Global under the Commercial Weather Data Pilot to provide GNSS radio occultation data.
NOAA’s Joint Venture Partnership proposal is a $2,300,000 initiative to help NOAA ingest data from research satellites flown by NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.
NOAA completed the Satellite Observing System Architecture Study approximately 18 months before early 2018.
NOAA is building an enterprise ground capability to manage data processing and common standards as it anticipates acquiring data from many more government and commercial sensors.
NOAA will need new geostationary imagers around 2030 when the last two Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite‑R series spacecraft near the end of their expected lives.
NOAA has begun acquiring data from about a half dozen satellites flown by international partners, including Japan’s Himawari‑8 and India’s Scatterometer Satellite.
Himawari‑8 provides NOAA with observations from a vantage point west of GOES West.
NOAA’s future geostationary constellation may distribute many instruments across multiple observing points rather than host all instruments on a single GOES‑class platform.
European satellites provide NOAA with observations east of GOES East.
Japan’s Himawari weather satellite observed the December fireball using sensors that Harris Corporation designed for NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-R (GOES-R) series constellation.
NOAA has developed combined products using GOES ABI and NOAA’s Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite to merge high resolution and timeliness for applications such as near-real-time flood maps.
JPSS-1 (now NOAA-20) and Suomi NPP provide two polar satellites with comparable performance for NOAA.
NOAA launched GOES-16 and the first spacecraft in the Joint Polar Satellite System in 2017.
NOAA operated the GOES-17 ABI at 60 kelvin and adjusted detector channels to operate as high as the low 80s kelvin to lower cooling requirements.