COSMIC-2 / FORMOSAT-7: The future of global weather monitoring and prediction

COSMIC-2/FORMOSAT-7 is a satellite program designed to deliver next-generation global navigation satellite system (GNSS) radio occultation (RO) data to users around the world. This program is the 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 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. FORMOSAT-3/COSMIC reached the end of its design life in 2009 but continues to provide useful data to users around the world five years after its design life. Some of the satellites have exhibited unrecoverable anomalies and have already gone offline. Consequently the critical real-time satellite observing capability is degrading and maybe unavailable for assimilation into the weather forecasting models in the near future. 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 all partners 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 the Preliminary Design Review (PDR) in December 2013 and is tentatively scheduled to hold the Critical Design Review (CDR) and Integration and Test Review (ITR) in 3Q 2015. The COSMIC-2/FORMOSAT7 Program continues to make progress and is scheduled to launch 15 May 2016. This paper provides a brief overview of the COSMIC-2/FORMOSAT-7 Program including the program goals and objectives. It also discusses the status of the various segments of the program including the current satellite design, planned ground system architecture required to meet data latency requirements, launch vehicle development status, and payload development status.