- 期刊
- OpenAccess
FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC Space Craft Constellation System, Mission Results, and Prospect for Follow-On Mission
並列摘要
The FORMOSAT-3/COS MIC space craft con stellation consisting of six LEO satellites is the world's first operational GPS Radio Occultation (RO) mission. The mission is jointly developed by Taiwan's National Space Organization (NSPO) and the United States' UCAR in collaboration with NSF, USAF, NOAA, NASA, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the US Naval Research Laboratory. The FORMOSAT-3/COS MIC satellites were success fully launched from Vandenberg US AFB in California at 0140 UTC 15 April 2006 into the same or bit plane of the designated 516 km altitude. The mission goal is to de ploy the six satellites into six or bit planes at 800 km altitude with a 30-degree separation for evenly distributed global cover age. All six FORMOSAT-3/COS MIC satellites are currently maintaining a sat is factory good state-of-health. Five out of six satellites have reached their final mission or bit of 800 km as of November 2007. The data as received by FORMOSAT-3/COS MIC satellites constellation have been processed in near real time into 2500 good ionospheric profiles and 1800 good atmospheric profiles per day. These have out numbered the world wide radiosondes (~900 mostly over land) launched from the ground per day. The processed at mospheric RO data have been assimilated into the Numerical Weather Pre diction (NWP) models for real-time weather pre diction and typhoon/hurricane fore casting by many ma jor weather centers in the world. This pa per de scribes the FORMOSAT-3/COS MIC satellite constellation sys tem per for mance and the mission results that span the period from April 2006 to October 2007; and reviews the prospect of a future follow-on mission.