download PDF - Imaging Notes

“Users who participate
share their content, get
to use the integrated
services, and maintain
the intellectual property
rights of any content
brought into this system.”
MIGLARESE Ideally our maximum
constellation would be 24 satellites.
Right now, we’re looking at 12, and
we’ll need approximately $125 million
for that. Each satellite is about 75 kg,
with launches of four at a time in three
consecutive years. The 12 satellites will
provide excellent data across the globe.
S&S You mentioned the weather
forecast measurement as the primary
market. Are there other areas of
measurement and monitoring that you
can monetize
MIGLARESE The ionospheric space
weather measurements are of huge
interest to the United States Air
Force as well as a large number of
commercial organizations that operate
satellites in space, the airlines, and
power grid operators. If we get a solid
constellation of 12, and particularly
if we can take it to 24, there will be
a dramatic increase in the ability to
monitor and forecast space weather.
That clearly is a product that we’d
like to offer the community. The effectual
primary parameters of data that
come off of this sensor are temperature
and pressure, and secondary data
include water vapor, wind speed and
wind direction. This is vector-based
data, from the atmosphere back to
the spacecraft in low Earth orbit. It’s
SEVERAL NATIONAL WEATHER
FORECAST AGENCIES AROUND
THE GLOBE NOW HAVE GPS-RO DATA
IN THEIR OPERATIONAL FORECAST
MODELS.
not big data, but a profile for multiple
points with X, Y and Z coordinates.
That raw data is ingested in forecast
models to then make a forecast.
There is four trillion dollars in
weather risk impacting the economy
every year. There are a whole host of
applications, with every citizen, society
and business interested in weather.
Globally, society is very interested in
climate change. Another very important
variable of this data is the ability
to improve climate models over time.
S&S Are you planning to provide a
service
MIGLARESE We will be a data
provider, not a service provider. We
will have professional expertise necessary
to support our customers as they
ingest the data, but we will not offer
services. There are many highly qualified
government agencies and private
weather companies across the globe,
and we look to them as our customers.
S&S So, the opportunity is clearly a
business opportunity, but is it also tied
into policy
MIGLARESE I think there are many
interesting policy questions here, most
of which parallel the policy issues that
have played out in the satellite imagery
business. I’m grateful to have spent
decades in the imagery world to have
learned some of those lessons.
Our customers in the United States
will be organizations like NOAA, the
United States Air Force, which I’ve met
with several times already, the United
States Navy, and the National Science
Foundation. I would see NOAA as
holding a license to distribute the data
throughout the federal civilian government.
The Air Force will hopefully buy a
license for the DOD efforts, the National
Science Foundation could distribute the
data to all of their principle investigators
who are engaged in research related to
weather and climate variability.
If you look at the other governments
around the world, I see very
similar customers in those organizations.
In France for instance – their
weather organization, their Air Force,
and their climate research organization.
Those are the type of government
customers we’re looking at.
As far as commercial customers,
those very high-end weather forecast
companies that generate tailored forecasts
for their commercial customers,
and their customer base may be the
Future’s Market, commercial airlines,
IMAGING NOTES // WINTER 2013 // WWW.IMAGINGNOTES.COM
17