FORMOSAT-7/COSMIC-2 GNSS radio occultation constellation mission for global weather monitoring

Abstract

The United States and Taiwan, through an Agreement signed in May 2010, have begun to jointly develop a satellite program to deliver next-generation global navigation satellite system (GNSS) radio occultation (RO) data to users around the world. This Program, known as FORMOSAT-7/COSMIC-2, is the follow-on to the FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC mission, which was a joint US-Taiwan 6-satellite constellation demonstration mission launched in April 2006. The COSMIC mission was the world's first operational GPS radio occultation (GPS-RO) mission for global weather forecast; climate monitoring; atmospheric, ionospheric, and geodetic research. The GPS-RO data from COSMIC has been extremely valuable to the climate, meteorology, and space weather communities, including real-time forecasting users as well as U.S. and international research communities. FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC reached the end of its design life in 2011. The constellation satellites have exhibited some unrecoverable anomalies and consequently the critical real-time satellite observing capability is degrading and may go offline with uncertainty in the coming few years. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Taiwan's National Space Organization (NSPO) have recognized the potential GPS-RO data gap due to the degrading COSMIC/FORMOSAT-3 constellation and agreed to implement the follow-on COSMIC-2/FORMOSAT-7 mission in 2010. Both experienced programmatic difficulties in the past two years in the course of implementing the COSMIC-2/FORMOSAT-7 Program; however, significant progress over the past six months has occurred. This paper will provide an overview of the COSMIC2/FORMOSAT-7 Program including the Program goals and objectives. It will also discuss the status of the Program including current satellite and constellation configuration, activities to determine the optimal and minimal ground system architecture to meet data latency requirements, and other discussions on the mission and scientific payload technology that will be used to meet the Program objectives.