NOAA NESDIS Global Navigation Satellite System Radio Occultation Planning for the Future

The NOAA/NESDIS vision is to ensure a combination of space-based environmental observation assets, including NOAA-owned and managed missions, partner missions, and the purchase of commercial data. With the Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate-2 (COSMIC-2) exceeding its design life in 2024 and the potential for degradation of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Radio Occultation (RO) capabilities predicted to begin in 2026, NOAA needs a strategic plan to fill these gaps to meet its mission requirements. NESDIS has been working to better understand the GNSS-RO gaps that will occur in the future as well as design the next-generation hybrid architecture for GNSS-RO data.

International government partner missions provide an excellent source of GNSS-RO data. Additionally, NOAA is purchasing and using commercially available Earth-observing data to respond to the ever-growing demand for environmental information and satisfy NOAA’s observational requirements. These commercial sources can augment and enhance observations available from government sponsored missions. However, with both commercial and partner satellites predominantly in polar orbits, it is more challenging to meet global coverage requirements in the equatorial regions.

NESDIS is conducting an Analysis of Alternatives (AoA) to identify the gaps in GNSS-RO coverage as COSMIC-2 degrades. The study is evaluating hybrid architectures to maintain capability to meet NOAA RO requirements through 2038. The architectures assessed include international government partner data, interagency data, commercial data, and NOAA government satellites. This presentation will cover the process for the GNSS-RO AoA including an analysis of the gaps in coverage, introducing a framework to visualize the gaps, and analyzing hybrid architectures.