EUMETSAT and Radio Occultations

EUMETSAT

and Radio Occultations

Christian Marquardt, Axel von Engeln, Christophe Accadia

Slide: 2

Background: Radio Occultation Missions

97 98 99 00 01 02 03 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

SAC/C

COSMIC

GRACE

OCEANSAT-2

Metop-A Metop-B Metop-C

SAC/D

TerraSAR-X

TanDEM-X

COSMIC-II

CHAMP

NOW

Research

Best Effort

KOMPSAT-5

Operational

Megha-TropiquesPlanned

Slide: 3

GRAS as operational RO mission for 15+ years

- State-of-the-art RO instrument

- 650 occultations / day / instrument (sustained)

With launch of Metop B (early 2012)

– 2 GRAS instruments in orbit

– as long as GRAS/Metop-A can be operated (or until Metop-C launch)

GRAS Ground Support Network (service provided by ESA/ESOC)

- high rate fiducial ground network (40 stations, mostly available on IGS as well)

- GPS orbits and clocks in NRT (latency 2 hrs)

- operational availability (≥ 95%), latency (≤ 15 mins obs) and 24/7 support

- navigation bit network under consideration

GSN raw data provided to UCAR and NSPO, used for operational COSMIC processing

EUMETSAT and Radio Occultations - Present

Slide: 4

EUMETSAT and Radio Occultations - Future

Post-EPS: The follow-on system for the Metop sequence of satellites (EPS)

User-driven requirements process

- takes into account NWP, nowcasting, climate, atmospheric chemistry,

oceanography, hydrology and EPS continuation

- defines priority rank of possible missions (process still ongoing)

Phase 0 (mission analysis) completed in 2009

Phase A (feasibility studies) 2009 - 2011

Phase B (preliminary definition) 2011 – 2013

Phase C/D (detailed definition & production) 2014+

Need date 2020

Slide: 5

EUMETSAT and Radio Occultations - Future

Current mission prioritisation (2008, but still valid after 2009 discussions):

Remaining 16 candidate missions are of ‘Medium’ or ‘Low’ rank

Take into account that VII and SCA are also aiming at nowcasting, oceanography and hydrology applications (which RO doesn’t serve that well).

(see http://www.eumetsat.int/groups/pps/documents/document/pdf_peps_pard.pdf for details)

Candidate mission Rank

High-Res Infrared Sounding

IRS Very High

Microwave Sounding MWS Very High

VIS/IR Imaging VII Very High

Scatterometry SCA Very High

Radio Occultation Sounding

RO High

Slide: 6

EUMETSAT and Radio Occultations - Future

Post-EPS mission requirements for Radio Occultation

- GRAS performance as baseline / improvements considered

- GPS, Galileo, possibly GLONASS (TBC) and BEIDOU / COMPASS (TBC)

- Exploiting new civil frequencies

- Raw sampling / open loop

- Space weather monitoring (on opportunistic basis)

- Early stage of definition - Instrument and mission concepts will be further analysed during phase A of the Post-EPS process.