Multi-Sensor Weather Satellite Constellation Plans Announced

Weather and climate security platform The Tomorrow Companies have announced plans for the first commercial multi-sensor weather satellite constellation by adding microwave sounders to the company’s constellation of radar-equipped weather satellites.

“The dual-sensor approach is a critical step in accomplishing our core mission of providing weather intelligence to businesses, countries, and individuals around the world to enable climate adaptation at scale.”

Rei Goffer, Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Tomorrow.io.

The combined sensing capabilities from radars (active microwave sensors) and sounders (passive microwave sensors) will allow Tomorrow.io to acquire multiple types of near real-time, global atmospheric data critical to improving weather forecasts. The data, when fed into Tomorrow’s proprietary models and its Weather and Climate Security software platform, is expected to enhance the ability of organizations to proactively prepare for and mitigate the business impact of weather. Tomorrow.io will also offer data-as-a-service to government agencies worldwide.

Tomorrow.io previously announced plans to launch a first-of-its-kind constellation of radar-equipped satellites to collect global precipitation data with hourly revisit rates. Radar provides vital observations of the global water cycle for weather forecasts. Yet, much of the world lacks ground-based radar coverage with virtually no coverage across the oceans, limiting the ability to generate reliable weather alerts.

Augmenting the company’s planned multi-sensor satellite constellation with microwave sounders would further improve the global revisit rate for precipitation data and enable the acquisition of additional measurements such as three-dimensional temperature and water vapor profiles at an unprecedented refresh rate. This enhancement is expected to dramatically improve hurricane forecasting, flood alerts and natural disaster management.

“A multi-sensor satellite constellation composed of both active and passive microwave instruments would allow us to observe the global atmosphere in near real-time. This paves the way to improving access to weather forecasting for everyone,” said Rei Goffer, Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Tomorrow.io. “The dual-sensor approach is a critical step in accomplishing our core mission of providing weather intelligence to businesses, countries, and individuals around the world to enable climate adaptation at scale.”

Earlier this month, Tomorrow announced the successful completion of a critical design review of its proprietary weather radar satellites with the U.S. Air Force (USAF). Last year the USAF awarded a $19.3 million contract to Tomorrow.io to support development of the company’s first four weather satellites. The first satellites are expected to launch in late 2022, with a full constellation expected to be in orbit by 2024.

(Image provided with Tomorrow.io news release)