HR: 14:30h
AN: SA23A-03    [Abstracts]
TI: FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC Radio Occultation Constellation Mission and the Future Plan for Global Climate Monitoring
AU: * Yen, N L
EM: longine@nspo.org.tw
AF: National Space Organization, *F, #9 Prosperity 1st Road Science Park, Hsin-Chu, 300, Taiwan
AU: Wu, L
EM: lancewu@nspo.org.tw
AF: National Space Organization, *F, #9 Prosperity 1st Road Science Park, Hsin-Chu, 300, Taiwan
AU: Fong, C
EM: cjfong@nspo.org.tw
AF: National Space Organization, *F, #9 Prosperity 1st Road Science Park, Hsin-Chu, 300, Taiwan
AB: The Radio Occultation (RO) has been drawn great attention in the global atmospheric field since the successful "proof of the RO concept" program, GPSMET, in 1995. Shortly after the successful launch of the NSPO's FORMOSAT-3 (or COSMIC in the States by NSPO's partner UCAR) in April 2006, the enormous RO data in 6- satellites constellation distribution globally have been successfully retrieved and used in the assimilation system widely. The FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC spacecraft constellation is the first operational GPS radio occultation constellation mission. The COSMIC mission stands for Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate and carries three onboard instruments including GPS Occultation Receiver (GOX), Tri- Band Beacon (TBB), and Tiny Ionospheric Photometer (TIP). All the six FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC satellites are maintained in the good state of health and are on their way toward the final constellation of six separate orbit planes with 30-degree separations as planned. Three out of six satellites have reached their final mission orbit of 800 km by the early February of 2007. The FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC has processed over 1800 good atmospheric sounding profiles (~900 mostly above the land mass) per day that has over the number of worldwide radiosondes launched per day. It's expected to reach 2500 good atmospheric sounding profiles per day in the near future. The atmospheric radio soundings data are assimilated into the Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models for real-time weather prediction and typhoon/hurricane forecast. This paper will emphasize the performance of the FORMOSAT-3 that affect the RO data retrievals and the projection of the follow-on program(s) to continue the RO constellation in the future. The ultimate success of a real-time operation of the FORMOSAT- 3/COSMIC mission in the final constellation formation can be anticipated.
UR: http:www.nspo.org.tw
DE: 6969 Remote sensing
DE: 6979 Space and satellite communication
SC: SPA-Aeronomy [SA]
MN: 2007 Joint Assembly