NASA Extends Spire Contract to Support SNOOPI Mission

NASA has extended Spire Global’s contract to participate in the Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition program, tasking the company to support the ongoing Signals of Opportunity: P-band Investigation mission by collecting ultra high frequency and P-band radio signal data.

According to Jeffrey Piepmeier, the chief microwave instrument engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Spire’s efforts enabled SNOOPI personnel to mitigate risks and check the team’s basic working principles. Piepmeier explained that the agency aims to conduct the first satellite remote sensing of root-zone soil moisture, findings from which could be used for agricultural production forecasting and flood prediction, Spire said.

Space-based data collected by Spire under CSDA has been integrated into NASA research projects such as the measurement of water and sea ice levels and the estimation of planetary boundary layer height. The company is one of the original vendors for CSDA, joining the program in 2018.

In June, NASA awarded Spire a one-year, $6 million extension under CSDA for it to continue providing observation data related to the Earth’s surface, atmosphere and space weather as well as domain awareness. A similar extension was made in 2021 to ensure that federal agencies could continue accessing the collected figures and information. Spire operates a constellation of 100 satellites to collect data.