In a significant shift in the U.S. military’s approach to environmental monitoring, the Navy will permanently cease providing satellite weather data to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), effective July 31.
The decision was announced in a recent NOAA release, marking a formal end to a long-standing collaboration between the two agencies.
“This service change and termination will be permanent,” NOAA stated, underscoring the finality of the transition.
At the heart of the move is the Defense Department’s decision to stop sharing data gathered from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP), a decades-old system that has long been integral to both military and civilian weather forecasting.
Here's What They're Not Telling You About Your Retirement
The change also includes a halt in data sharing from all Near-Earth Space Weather instruments and other Defense Department-owned systems.
For years, DMSP satellites have delivered crucial weather imagery and data by capturing global snapshots from space twice daily. These satellites monitored cloud formations, velocities, compositions, and drifts—information essential to understanding and forecasting weather events.
“Military weather forecasters [using the DMSP] can detect developing patterns of weather and track existing weather phenomena over remote areas, including the presence of fog, severe thunderstorms, dust and sandstorms, and tropical cyclones,” the U.S. Space Force noted in a previous statement.
However, the aging DMSP fleet—now more than a decade past its expected end-of-life—is being phased out in favor of newer, more advanced technology.
This Could Be the Most Important Video Gun Owners Watch All Year
The Weather System Follow-on Microwave (WSF-M), a next-generation satellite program, has officially entered service, having achieved Initial Operational Capacity as of April 2025.
Launched in 2024, WSF-M offers enhanced weather-tracking capabilities. It can monitor sea ice, soil moisture, snow depth, and measure wind patterns more precisely, significantly improving the military’s and NOAA’s ability to track cyclones and other severe weather systems.
NOAA will now rely on data from both the WSF-M and the Electro-Optical Weather System (EWS) to fill the gap left by the loss of DMSP contributions.
“DMSP satellites remain operational today but are more than a decade past their expected end of life,” NOAA acknowledged in its release.
While the data discontinuation could raise concerns about gaps in forecasting coverage, NOAA emphasized that it retains access to multiple other data sources.
These include the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS), a fleet of Earth observation satellites operated jointly with NASA, as well as data from ocean buoys, global weather radars, and additional observation platforms.
“While the discontinuation of certain data streams from DMSP may seem alarming, the transition to WSF-M and EWS represents a modernization effort aimed at providing more resilient and enhanced environmental monitoring capabilities to improve our ability to understand and predict weather phenomena, including tropical cyclones,” NOAA stated.
The decision to modernize comes amid broader efforts across the Department of War (DoW) to update and overhaul aging infrastructure and systems. In the space domain, similar challenges persist.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported last fall that the U.S. Space Force continues to struggle with modernizing its GPS satellite systems, citing deficient equipment and technological hurdles.
Other branches of the military are also engaged in modernization efforts. The U.S. Army, for example, is in the midst of a major overhaul of its network capabilities.
Earlier this year, it began installing advanced satellite communication systems at a new teleport facility in Okinawa, which is scheduled to be fully operational by November.
In tandem with these initiatives, the Department of War recently awarded a $28.4 million contract to L3Harris Technologies to bolster the Navy’s satellite communications infrastructure, further reinforcing the shift toward a more advanced and independent military satellite system.
The end of data sharing with NOAA also comes in the broader political context of the Trump administration’s resistance to climate-focused policy language and initiatives.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Coast Guard Academy reportedly removed references to “climate change” from its official materials to align with White House directives.
Despite the political undertones, the move is being framed primarily as a technical and strategic evolution rather than a retreat from scientific cooperation.
NOAA and the DoW emphasize that the updated systems will enhance weather forecasting capabilities rather than diminish them.
As the military turns to new tools and partnerships to monitor the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans, the end of the DMSP era represents both a conclusion and a new beginning in the world of satellite meteorology.
Join the Discussion
COMMENTS POLICY: We have no tolerance for messages of violence, racism, vulgarity, obscenity or other such discourteous behavior. Thank you for contributing to a respectful and useful online dialogue.