NASA Extends Contract with Spire Global, Inc., for SmallSat Data

Satellite data provider Spire Global, Inc., received a 12-month contract extension from NASA to continue its participation in the agency’s Commercial SmallSat Data Acquisition (CSDA) program. Under the extension, Spire will continue its delivery of a comprehensive catalog of data, associated metadata, and ancillary information from its Earth-orbiting small-satellite constellation, including 12 months of radio occultation data with a 30-day latency. 

These data will be available for scientific purposes at no cost to all U.S. federal agencies, NASA-funded researchers, and, more broadly, all U.S. government-funded researchers. Spire data will be archived by NASA and available through CSDA’s SmallSat Data Explorer (SDX) tool.

Data products in the subscription data-buy with Spire include data related to:

• Surface observation: Spire's Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Grazing Area Reflectometry (GNSS-R) data can be used to measure sea ice extent, sea ice classification and altimetry, soil moisture, and ocean surface wind speed.
• Atmospheric assessment: Spire's GNSS Radio Occultation (GNSS-RO) soundings can be used in weather forecast models to improve the accuracy of global weather forecasting.
• Space weather: Measurements of electron density and scintillation allow researchers to monitor the ionosphere as well as prepare for and react to space weather events.
• Domain awareness: Satellite state vector, altitude, and precise orbit determination (POD) enable the correction of errors in orbital drag models.

The data-buy includes an end-user license agreement (EULA) that provides an exceptionally broad level of dissemination and shareability. Along with all U.S. federal agencies, Spire data will continue to be openly available for scientific purposes to state and local governments, territories, and tribal authorities within the U.S.; U.S. government-funded non-governmental and non-profit organizations; and U.S. government-funded contractors, subcontractors, partners, and grantees. To read the EULA and to request access to Spire data, please see CSDA Commercial Datasets.

NASA’s Commercial SmallSat Data Acquisition (CSDA) program is a component of NASA’s Earth Science Data Systems (ESDS) Program. CSDA was established in 2017 to identify, evaluate, and acquire commercial remote sensing imagery and data that support NASA’s Earth science research and application activities. Spire was one of the original vendors selected as part of the CSDA pilot and has provided reflectometry, radio occultation, and other Earth observation data to NASA since 2018.