COSMIC-2 also known as FORMOSAT-7, is the constellation of satellites for

meteorology Meteorology is a branch of the atmospheric sciences (which include atmospheric chemistry and physics) with a major focus on weather forecasting. The study of meteorology dates back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did not ...

ionosphere The ionosphere () is the ionized part of the upper atmosphere of Earth, from about to above sea level, a region that includes the thermosphere and parts of the mesosphere and exosphere. The ionosphere is ionized by solar radiation. It plays an ...

climatology Climatology (from Greek , ''klima'', "place, zone"; and , '' -logia'') or climate science is the scientific study of Earth's climate, typically defined as weather conditions averaged over a period of at least 30 years. This modern field of stud ...

, and

space weather Space weather is a branch of space physics and aeronomy, or heliophysics, concerned with the time varying conditions within the Solar System, including the solar wind, emphasizing the space surrounding the Earth, including conditions in the ma ...

research. FORMOSAT-7 is a joint US-

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

ese project including

National Space Organization The National Space Organization (NSPO or NSO) is the national civilian space agency of the Republic of China (Taiwan), part of the National Applied Research Laboratories under the auspices of the Ministry of Science and Technology (Taiwan), ...

(NSPO) on the Taiwanese side and the

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (abbreviated as NOAA ) is an United States scientific and regulatory agency within the United States Department of Commerce that forecasts weather, monitors oceanic and atmospheric conditio ...

(NOAA) and the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...

(USAF) on the US side. FORMOSAT-7 is the successor of FORMOSAT-3 The six satellites of the constellation were launched 25 June 2019 on a Falcon Heavy rocket. They reached their designated mission orbits in February 2021, after eighteen months of gradual orbital adjustments. Full operational capability was achieved in October 2021.

Pre-launch

On the morning of 14 April 2019, President Tsai Ing-wen traveled to Hsinchu City to take part in send-off activities for the Formosat-7 satellite. She commended the hard work and accomplishments of the research and development team, and hailed Formosat-7 as a milestone in promoting Taiwan's technological diplomacy, noting that she expected the satellite would display the brilliance of Taiwan's aerospace technology on the international stage. On 15 April the satellites were placed aboard a Taiwanese China Airlines cargo plane at

Taoyuan International Airport Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport is an international airport serving Taipei and northern Taiwan. Located about west of Taipei in Dayuan District, Taoyuan, the airport is Taiwan's largest. It was also the busiest airport in Taiwan before t ...

. The six satellites were packed in three climate controlled transport crates. The satellites were shipped as

diplomatic pouch A diplomatic bag, also known as a diplomatic pouch, is a container with certain legal protections used for carrying official correspondence or other items between a diplomatic mission and its home government or other diplomatic, consular, or other ...

to speed their journey through US customs, the first time a satellite had been shipped as such.

Design

COSMIC-2 Cafeteria Cups Radio Occultation Antenna Array

78% of components for the satellites were made in Taiwan. The satellites receive signals from both GPS and GLONASS. The constellation collects more than 4,000 pieces of data a day.

Radio-Occultation Payload

The primary payload for the COSMIC-2 Satellite is the Radio Occultation instrument. This instrument is capable of measuring atmospheric effects by analyzing the propagation of GNSS signals through said atmosphere. The instrument is composed of the Tri-band GNSS (TriG) RO and POD Receiver and four Antennas: * Two Radio Occultation Arrays (the Cafeteria Cups Antenna) one Forward, one Aft * Two Precise Orbit Determination Antennas, one Forward, one Aft

Cafeteria Cups Antenna

Each RO Antenna is composed of three vertical sub-arrays, four elements each. Each element is a two-turn Helical Spiral. The collected signals from the four vertical elements are combined with a low loss beamformer. The name 'Cafeteria Cups' comes from the fact that the antenna elements in the very first prototype were made out of plastic cups from the JPL cafeteria. The Antenna is fabricated out of 3D Printed FDM Ultem 9085. This makes the COSMIC-2 RO antenna the first 3D printed part on the outside of a Spacecraft to be qualified to NASA Class 2B Spaceflight.

Launch

COSMIC-2 launched on

SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is an American spacecraft manufacturer, launcher, and a satellite communications corporation headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the stated goal of ...

's Falcon Heavy from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A on 25 June 2019.

Post-launch

The first data from COSMIC-2 was made public in March 2020 with the new data improving the accuracy of weather forecasts by 10-11%. All six satellites reached their mission orbits by February 2021. The mission achieved full operational capability in October 2021.

References

External links

FORMOSAT-7
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{{Orbital launches in 2019 Earth observation satellites of Taiwan Spacecraft launched in 2019 SpaceX commercial payloads