The Future of GNSS-RO for Global Weather Monitoring and Prediction – A COSMIC-2 / FORMOSAT-7 Program Status Update

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Taiwan's National Space Organization (NSPO) recognize the potential GPS-RO data gap due to the degrading COSMIC/FORMOSAT-3 constellation and agreed to implement the follow-on COSMIC-2/FORMOSAT mission in 2010. Despite both sides of the pond experiencing programmatic difficulties in the past several years throughout the course of implementing the COSMIC-2/FORMOSAT-7 Program, significant progress has occurred over the past year. The program successfully completed PDR in March 2014 and is tentatively scheduled to hold CDR in December 2014. The COSMIC-2/FORMOSAT-7 Program continues to make progress and march towards its May 2016 launch date.

We will provide a brief overview of the COSMIC-2 / FORMOSAT-7 Program including the Program goals and objectives. We will also discuss the status of the various segments of the Program including the current satellite design, planned ground system architecture required to meet data latency requirements, and payload technology and development status.