COSMIC-2/FORMOSAT-7 GNSS Radio Occultation Constellation Mission - A Research to Operations Success

The United States and Taiwan, through an Agreement signed in May 2010, have agreed 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 a 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 Earth 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. Unfortunately, COSMIC reached the end of its design life in 2011 and the critical real-time satellite observing capability has begun to significantly degrade as satellites become no longer operational.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Taiwan's National Space Organization (NSPO) have both experienced difficulties in the past two years with respect to the FORMOSAT-7/COSMIC-2 Program; however, significant progress on the Program has occurred – particularly in the past 6 months. This paper will provide a current overview of the COSMIC-2 Program including the Program goals and objectives. It will show how this newly planned operational satellite system has benefited from its research roots in COSMIC-1. It will also discuss the updated 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.