The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Joint Venture Partnerships program is working with the commercial aerospace sector to demonstrate and evaluate the Hyperspectral Microwave Sensor technology over a period of two years.
The HyMS technology could enable data users to reduce uncertainties and gather better observation data in all-weather conditions by using high-spectral resolution in imaging and sounding microwave bands, NOAA said Thursday.
The office of system architecture and advanced planning within NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service is overseeing the Joint Venture Partnerships program.
“What we want to see is whether a hyperspectral microwave sensor could add additional information to resolve that mixed signal you get from the presence of water vapor, rain, ice particles in the atmosphere,” said Sid Boukabara, formerly the principal scientist for OSAAP.
“We realized that this technology could increase the performance of the soundings we are taking, and we saw the potential to improve Numerical Weather Prediction so our forecasts are more accurate not just for the next few days, but also what’s happening now,” Boukabara added.
Satellite company Spire is developing a HyMS technology through the Joint Venture Partnerships program and plans to demonstrate the tool by launching it into orbit in 2024.
The program also works with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Goddard Space Flight Center on HyMS tools originally developed for the space agency’s Earth science technology office.
NOAA said it is funding airborne, space-based and balloon-based demonstrations to assess the potential uses of the hyperspectral technology in support of its missions.
