Nichols Martin
Spire Global will provide weather forecasting support to Stratolaunch, a hypersonic flight testing company in need of data across several flight altitudes.
The space-based data, analytics and services provider said Thursday it will initially generate 55 discrete vertical levels of weather forecast data to support Stratolaunch’s testing activities off California’s coast. The delivery will also include a surface forecast.
The Vienna, Virginia-headquartered company employs more than 100 satellites that produce a 3D representation of atmospheric temperature, humidity and pressure based on radio frequency data.
Spire’s forecasts combine radio occultation with input from weather balloons and other publicly accessible sources of weather data.
“Improved spatial and time resolution data will give us higher confidence in the weather conditions when flying our Talon-A hypersonic vehicles,” said Brandon Wood, director of hypersonics program at Stratolaunch.
Stratolaunch deploys the Talon hypersonic vehicles from its Roc carrier aircraft to facilitate hypersonic research, experiments and operational missions.
