The geostationary (GEO) satellite platform plays an invaluable and fundamental role in the near real-time monitoring and tracking of developing tropical systems, particularly over the global ocean basins where terrestrial-based observing capabilities are limited. The recent minor mechanical problems encountered by the Geostationary Meteorological Satellite (providing coverage over the Tropical Western Pacific) have raised important questions with regard to contingency plans in the event of a catastrophic failure of one of the GEO sensors during the active hurricane season. In this study we investigate to what extent aggregation of the existing suite of low-earth-orbiting (LEO) platforms can serve as a stop-gap solution during such a scenario. Latitude-dependent spatial and temporal coverages are compared to GEO coverage and weighed against the current observation requirements of operational centers (e.g., the National Hurricane Center and the Joint Typhoon Warning Center). The trade-offs between coverage limitations and the additional information afforded by microwave sensors (unavailble from the existing GEO satellites) carried aboard several of the LEO satellites are also considered. Examples from recent tropical systems are presented.