SPoRT originally partnered with NOAA National Weather Service (NWS) partners in the southeastern United States and over the years has developed active collaborations with more than 30 NWS Weather Forecast Offices in all 6 NWS regions and 5 NCEP National Centers, including the Space Weather Prediction Center and Space Flight Meteorology Group. SPoRT works collaboratively with government and university partners as well as NASA missions to obtain real-time data and engage the research community in the development of new experimental products. The map below demonstrates SPoRT’s collaboration across NOAA National Weather Service community as of 2018 as well as groups who have dedicated their time and effort to make these collaborations a success.
Over the past several years, SPoRT has been broadening its reach and has begun to apply its known “research-to-operations” paradigm to partners that can benefit from the integration of unique NASA satellite observations and research capabilities. For example, SPoRT has seen an expansion of data products that support new collaborating partners and stakeholders across additional federal and state government agencies such as the US Forest Service, US Department of Agriculture, US Geological Survey, US Air Force, US Drought Monitor, National Ocean Service, US Environmental Protection Agency, CAL Fire, Alaska Interagency Coordination Center. SPoRT also partners will other NASA programs such as DISASTERS, SERVIR, and ARSET to further the use and benefit of NASA data for applications. In addition, private companies use SPoRT data products to improve their predictive models and in research studies (e.g., IBM Weather, Barron, WorldWinds). The SPoRT Stakeholder Summit was created in 2022 to engage current stakeholders to foster operations to research feedback and the acceleration of science capabilities to applications and for the purpose of recruiting new end users.
Lastly, SPoRT engages with the community to foster relationships and innovation between science and applications of future missions and mission concepts. Therefore, SPoRT applies and utilizes its research-to-operations/operations-to-research (R2O/O2R) paradigm to support the current suite of NASA Earth Science satellites, lead the TROPICS and TEMPO Applications Programs, and inform the future missions related to the Earth System Observatory.
About SPoRT
The Short-term Prediction Research and Transition (SPoRT) center at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL is a NASA-funded activity with a vision of accelerating the translation of NASA science to applications by collaborating with researchers, innovators, and stakeholders. SPoRT was established in 2002 and is funded under the NASA Earth Science Division Research and Analysis Program’s Weather and Atmospheric Dynamics Focus Area. Therefore, SPoRT’s early focus was on transitioning NASA products to the operational weather community to improve short-term forecasting with end users within the operational weather community (e.g. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Weather Service). Today SPoRT focuses on applied research and applications in 6 focus areas that span weather, atmospheric, and land surface topics with partnerships across government, academia, and the private sector (see Collaborative Partners). A research-to-operations/operations-to-research paradigm (figure below) has been the basis for transitioning over 40 satellite products to stakeholders over 20 years. The main goals of the SPoRT paradigm include (1) early and intentional interaction with stakeholders, (2) identifying and/or developing user-driven science solutions from NASA observations and research capabilities, (3) timely delivery of data products for early stakeholder testing and feedback, (4) integration of data products and capabilities in user formats, visualizations, and display systems, (5) targeted applications-based training highlighting use cases, examples, product advantages and limitations, (5) stakeholder assessments and product testing, and (6) prioritizing operations to research feedback to meet users’ needs and facilitate the sustained use of NASA data in applications. The SPoRT paradigm enables intentional interaction between scientists and stakeholders throughout the research-to-applications/applications-to-research lifecycle to develop innovative solutions through an iterative process that meet stakeholder needs, are tailored for their application, and promote sustained use of NASA observations and research capabilities. SPoRT values innovation, collaboration, and engagement to bridge the gap between science and applications and maximize the benefit of NASA data for operations, applications, and decision making.
Responsible Official: Dr. Andrew Molthan (andrew.molthan@nasa.gov)
Page Curator: SPoRT Support (msfc-dl-sport-support@mail.nasa.gov)
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