The Tomorrow Companies Inc. (“Tomorrow.io”), developer of a leading platform for global weather and climate security, has completed assembly and testing of its first precipitation radar and delivered the payload to Astro Digital for satellite integration. Tomorrow.io was awarded a multi-year $19.3 million contract last year from the U.S. Air Force, funded through the Air Force’s Commercial Weather Data Pilot Program, to support deployment of the company’s first four satellites.
Tomorrow.io selected Astro Digital’s Corvus-XL satellite platform for the first two satellites of its constellation. Delivery of the radar payload, after Tomorrow.io and the Air Force conducted a successful critical design review earlier this year, puts Tomorrow.io on track to launch its first satellite in early 2023, with a full constellation expected in orbit during 2025.
Tomorrow.io will offer operational satellite data-as-a-service to the U.S. Department of Defense and governmental agencies worldwide, while also ingesting the data into its proprietary modeling suite that powers its Weather and Climate Security Platform, which is used by hundreds of organizations to proactively manage weather-related challenges.
Precipitation measurements are critical to weather forecasting and are ranked the top priority out of 152 Earth observations by the intergovernmental Group on Earth Observations. Radar provides detailed observations of precipitation that no other sensor can see, yet much of the world lacks reliable ground-based radar coverage, including many areas of interest to the Department of Defense.
Tomorrow.io plans to launch a constellation of approximately 30 small satellites to provide high-resolution global coverage of 3-D precipitation and other key parameters—revisiting each point on the globe every hour on average, compared to the 2- to 3-day revisit rate of existing spaceborne radar missions.
“Global environmental data is essential to effective mission planning and execution of air and ground operations,” said John Dreher, materiel leader, Weather Systems Branch, in an Air Force news release. “This satellite constellation partnership with Tomorrow.io will give Air Force weather operators a vastly improved awareness of current and forecasted weather conditions.”
The constellation will enhance the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLCMC) mission to provide authoritative and accurate 24/7 global weather intelligence to the warfighter. Capabilities delivered under this contract are expected to further the Department of Defense’s ability to address the Joint Requirements Oversight Council Meteorological and Oceanographic Collection Requirements and bolster weather observations around the globe.
Tomorrow.io announced earlier this year the addition of microwave sounders to its planned satellite constellation, which would create the first multi-sensor weather satellite system owned and operated by a private company. The combined sensing capabilities from radars and sounders will allow Tomorrow.io to acquire multiple types of near real-time, global atmospheric data critical to improving operational weather forecasts.
About Tomorrow.io
Tomorrow.io is the world’s leading Weather and Climate Security Platform, helping countries, businesses, and individuals manage their weather and climate security challenges. The platform is fully customizable to any industry impacted by the weather. Customers around the world, including Uber, Delta, Ford, National Grid, and more use Tomorrow.io to dramatically improve operational efficiency. Tomorrow.io was built from the ground up to help teams prepare for the business impact of weather by automating decision-making and enabling climate adaptation at scale. To learn more, please go to: www.tomorrow.io
