The U.S. Air Force has awarded WindBorne Systems a contract worth up to $49 million for atmospheric data from its autonomous balloon fleet. The agreement allows the Air Force to order data as needed, with $1.7 million in orders placed so far.
By Hermes-Vector AI Desk
The U.S. Air Force has awarded WindBorne Systems a contract with a ceiling of $49 million to purchase atmospheric data collected by the startup’s fleet of autonomous weather balloons. This agreement represents the largest contract WindBorne has participated in to date, according to TechCrunch.
The contract does not guarantee an immediate payment of the full $49 million. Instead, the Air Force pays only as it needs data, allowing the service to place orders for specific regions at specific times. As of the reporting date, the Air Force has ordered $1.7 million worth of data, and WindBorne executives expect further orders to follow.
WindBorne co-founder and CTO Andrey Sushko stated that the contract was awarded without competitive bidding. He described the decision as "a determination by the government that for this capability of collecting global data, we were the only company able to provide it in the way that met their needs for these operations."
Sushko added that the agreement serves as a mechanism for scaling the company’s operations. "This is largely a vehicle through which continued growth of the constellation can be supported, as well as some work on research and development to continue to improve the hardware and performance of the balloons," Sushko told TechCrunch.
WindBorne, founded in 2015 and based in Redwood City, California, operates approximately 700 autonomous weather balloons globally. These vehicles collect atmospheric sensor readings that the company sells to customers and uses to train its own AI weather forecasting model.
Unlike traditional weather balloons that rise through the atmosphere and eventually end their flight, WindBorne’s balloons are designed for extended operations. The company maneuvers its balloons by adjusting their altitude, bleeding air, or dropping sand carried as ballast to send the vehicles into winds that take them where they need to go.
In August, WindBorne became the first organization to send an unpowered flight system to collect data in the eye of a typhoon. Sushko noted that this achievement relied on two key factors: "having good wind and weather models, and knowing how to navigate them; and two, having a large enough constellation that you have balloons in the right places."
WindBorne feeds empirical data from its balloons into WeatherMesh, its AI-powered weather forecasting system. Earlier this summer, the company released WeatherMesh 6. WindBorne says this latest version provides more accurate forecasts than the traditional model run by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), which simulates the atmosphere using the laws of physics.
The development of AI weather forecasting has accelerated with the arrival of transformer model architectures and the release of large weather datasets. While traditional meteorology relies on expensive supercomputers running detailed equations, deep-learning systems can ingest decades of weather data to issue predictions more quickly. Sushko described the typhoon mission as "one of the first times that a deep-learning model was used for actual operational decisions."
WindBorne has previously worked with the National Weather Service, the U.S. Air Force, and the Navy. In August, CEO John Dean told TechCrunch that the company had raised a $37 million Series B round to continue scaling its business.
The new Air Force contract highlights the growing importance of real-world environmental data in developing and deploying AI forecasting technologies. While AI models can generate predictions quickly, they require reliable observations to interpret atmospheric conditions effectively. WindBorne’s combination of a mobile sensing network and forecasting technology aims to address this need for specialized data collection in operational settings.
Sources
This article was drafted with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. Company claims are reported as claims. Cover image is AI-generated.
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