It is orbiting at 500 km above Earth in a polar orbit, and carrying a Ka-band radar ideally suited for detecting precipitation and critical ocean parameters. Tomorrow-R1 marks the first step in deploying the Tomorrow.io constellation of active and passive sensors, which will achieve breakthroughs in global weather forecasting and climate observation - near real-time scans of precipitation and atmospheric profiles for any point on Earth.
"Until today, only a handful of atmospheric radars have been launched to space, all built by government agencies with hefty budgets and long development times. Tomorrow.io is offering a step change in price-to-performance ratio, enabled by private innovation," said Shimon Elkabetz, CEO and co-founder of Tomorrow.io.
"Given their lofty costs, governmental missions have been limited to single satellites with revisit rates on the order of days-to-weeks. With every subsequent launch, Tomorrow.io will get closer to an era of truly proliferated weather sensing from space, closing this decades-old gap. We're building the de facto GPS network for weather."
At 11:48 p.m. PT April 14, Tomorrow.io's satellite lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on a SpaceX Falcon 9, successfully separating from the rocket and transmitting initial telemetry data shortly thereafter.
After a successful commissioning process, the radar payload is now operational and providing high-fidelity global precipitation measurements, which are being ingested into Tomorrow.io's weather intelligence platform.
"About five billion people live outside of reliable weather radar coverage today, leading to a huge gap in the quality and availability of life-saving weather information," said Rei Goffer, Chief Strategy Officer and Co-Founder of Tomorrow.io.
"Those most impacted by climate change are the least equipped to deal with it today, and we are taking a major step to fix this. As the planet moves into an era of climate-induced weather catastrophes, food insecurity, and new levels of volatility and risk, Tomorrow.io's constellation will power climate adaptation for generations to come."
Tomorrow.io initially announced its space plans in February 2021. Within only two years, the team advanced from preliminary concept to a fully functional platform that marks the beginning of a new era in weather forecasting.
"Our team worked tirelessly to get to this historic moment, and it's only just the beginning," said John Springmann, VP of Space and Sensors at Tomorrow.io. "With the initial satellite data collections complete and our integration into the Tomorrow.io platform, we are confidently moving to the next phase of operationalizing our full-scale constellation."
Tomorrow.io has demonstrated robust demand for the future capabilities of its constellation. The company has already been awarded more than $20M in contracts from the DOD and is executing a Collaborative R and D Agreement with NOAA.
"The prospects of a commercial follow-on mission to the NASA Global Precipitation Measurement Mission (GPM), but with 10 times the revisit rate, presents an incredibly exciting future to the global weather community," said Dr. J. Marshall Shepherd, Georgia Athletic Association Distinguished Professor of Geography and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Georgia.
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