GeoOptics Announces the Launch of GeoPRO – Innovative Radio Occultation Data Processing System

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GeoOptics, Inc. (GeoOptics) announced today the launch of an original radio occultation data processing system called the GeoOptics Processor for Radio Occultation (GeoPRO) that provide even more accurate and timely weather data from its CICERO constellation of radio occultation (RO) satellites. CICERO nanosatellites are designed to create the most detailed picture ever assembled of the Earth’s ionosphere and atmosphere.

 

For many years, detailed scientific analyses of radio occultation data have used a precise processing method called “phase-matching” to produce the most accurate radio occultation profiles possible. However, this method was generally considered too resource intensive for use in real-time data processing for operational weather modeling and forecasting.

 

GeoOptics has developed GeoPRO as a real-time phase-matching processing system built around the on-demand parallelism enabled by serverless cloud-computing services, sometimes referred to as “Serverless Supercomputing.” By optimizing the processing system and running it on massively parallel serverless infrastructure, GeoPRO enables near-real-time phase-matching processing of large quantities of radio occultation data.

 

Traditionally the processing of radio occultation data has been undertaken in a batch processing mode in which relatively large chunks of data are processed together and then released. However, as the number of GeoOptics satellites and ground stations increases, data will arrive much more frequently, requiring a different mode of operations to minimize data latency and maximize utility. GeoPRO is designed to make that transition possible.

GeoOptics Processor for Radio Occultation (GeoPRO) produces spectrograms that reveal the disintegration of the dual-frequency raw radio occultation signal at lower altitudes. The red areas are signals reaching the receiver after passing through the atmosphere. The dashed line is the processed atmospheric bending angle on each frequency generated by GeoPRO.

Data from the new processing system have been made available to scientists around the world and GeoOptics commercial data partners. Due to the accuracy of the data processing and the quality of the Cion receiver, the data exhibits remarkably low bias even in warm air near the Earth’s surface, where lower quality radio occultation data often suffers from uncontrolled biases. Research has shown that this degree of accuracy in the lower atmosphere is vital for forecasting hurricanes and other high-impact weather events.

 

“We’re excited to provide our newly refined data to customers who depend on getting the most timely and precise weather data possible,” said Alex Saltman, Chief Operating Officer and architect of the new processing system. “We’re leveraging new technologies across our satellites, ground systems and now data processing to deliver best-in-class data as a service to our government and commercial customers.”

 

GeoOptics’ mission is to provide the most detailed picture possible of our planet’s atmosphere, surface and subsurface to our customers as well as scientific users around the world. We have embarked on our mission with our first constellation of nanosatellites, known as CICERO – Community Initiative for Cellular Earth Remote Observation. The first operational satellites contain advanced Global Navigation Satellite System Radio Occultation (GNSS-RO) sensors developed in partnership with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems.

 

With our initial CICERO satellites on-orbit, GeoOptics is now providing the first and only high-quality commercial radio occultation data from space. Satellites now in work will expand upon and refine this capability and deploy other technologies to provide a comprehensive picture of the Earth’s environment.

 

GeoOptics Celebrates Two Years of On-orbit Operations

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On January 11, 2018, GeoOptics launched the first of its operational CICERO satellites for atmospheric radio occultation (RO). RO is a potent technique for sensing the atmosphere for improved weather forecasting accuracy, first proposed by GeoOptics founder and CTO Tom Yunck more than 30 years ago. The technique works by precisely observing the signals of GPS and other navigation satellites as the signals pass through the Earth’s atmosphere.

“We couldn’t be happier with how our team has performed over the last two years, both at GeoOptics and at our partners,” said GeoOptics CEO Conrad Lautenbacher. “I am confident that 2020 will see many new accomplishments — new launches, new capabilities, and new partners and applications for our high-quality global atmospheric data.”

Over the last two years the CICERO team, which includes key partners at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems, has achieved the following significant milestones:

High-quality occultations – From the first occultations gathered in 2018, it was clear that CICERO would deliver exceptionally high-quality data. The quality of radio occultation data is primarily demonstrated by an absence of measurement bias, as well as by how low in the atmosphere the profiles penetrate. Based on the many occultations that have now been gathered, we now know that CICERO data reaches down to a median altitude of just 1,000 meters above sea level with minimal bias – virtually none above 3,000 meters.

First GLONASS occultations – In April 2018, via an on-orbit software update, CICERO began collecting occultation data from Russian GLONASS navigation satellites in addition to GPS, recording the first science-quality GLONASS occultations ever taken from Earth orbit.

Over 500 occultations per day – In May 2018, CICERO began producing more than 500 high-quality occultations per day, the world’s first nanosatellite to approach and surpass this milestone.

Data Deliveries to NOAA – On October 31, 2018, GeoOptics began near-real-time data deliveries to NOAA under our $3.44 million contract from the Commercial Weather Data Pilot program. Over the following year CICERO delivered a total of 356,490 high-quality occultations, each just a few hours after it was gathered. GeoOptics completed its contracted data deliveries to NOAA in September 2019.

Additional satellites – In November and December 2018, GeoOptics launched additional CICERO satellites. As a demonstration of the constellation’s agility, and with support from the expert operational team at Tyvak, these satellites were deployed, began operations and provided data to partners within hours of launch. Additional CICERO satellite launches will continue in 2020.

Ground operations developments for low latency – In the past year GeoOptics has significantly reduced data latency by expanding the CICERO ground stations network across the world, as well as by developing a ground processing platform that streams live occultation data from downlinks into processing as soon it is received, before the end of each pass.

“Our team has developed strategies for continuous development and deployment across our entire data system, from the satellites to the ground stations, data processing and delivery platform,” said Chief Operating Officer Alex Saltman. “We have taken tools originally designed for Agile web development and adapted them to enable reliable operation of science data streams with an agility that is new to the satellite industry.”

CICERO nanosatellites are designed to create the most detailed picture ever assembled of the Earth’s ionosphere, atmosphere, surface and subsurface. The first operational satellites contain advanced Global Navigation Satellite System Radio Occultation (GNSS-RO) sensors developed in partnership with JPL and Tyvak.

Yunck noted that “radio occultation has been shown to have ten times the impact on weather forecasting accuracy per sounding when compared to any other satellite-based Earth observation, and at a far lower cost. Large commercial RO satellite constellations will inaugurate a new era of weather forecasting excellence.”

New CICERO satellites, which are now in work with launches starting in the next few months, will expand upon this technology and carry complementary sensors to help provide our data partners a complete picture of the Earth’s environment.

A Year of Free Science Data

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Last winter GeoOptics released the first research dataset from our CICERO constellation of radio occultation satellites, a total of a few weeks of data from the early operations of the constellation. As part of our mission to expand knowledge of the Earth, we were happy to open our doors to researchers to allow them free access to our data.

As of today, we are pleased to announce that we have now made available a year of the highest quality RO data, from November 2018 through October 2019, covering the entire globe. An atmospheric dataset of this caliber, covering a full calendar year, is particularly valuable because it encompasses the full seasonal variation.

If you are a researcher who would like access to this unique dataset, please email us at research-data@geooptics.com. Similarly, if your team has an interest in getting access to sample data for potential operational use, please email us at sample-data@geooptics.com.

Congratulations to COSMIC-2

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GNSS radio occultation (GNSS-RO) was first developed in the 1990s by the JPL research group led by our founder Tom Yunck. Following several developmental satellites, the COSMIC program was the first large scale deployment of GNSS-RO, a groundbreaking small satellite system jointly developed by the United States and Taiwan that provided the first high-quality occultations into the lower atmosphere and the highest volume of occultations to date. The six COSMIC satellites launched in 2006 and made many contributions to weather and climate research and operational weather forecasting.

After more than 10 years, almost all of the COSMIC satellites are now non-operational, so the U.S. and Taiwan undertook the COSMIC-2 program to replace them. The six satellites of the COSMIC-2 constellation launched last summer.

The satellites are still maneuvering into position, but have already started gathering data, and seeing good results. Many of our colleagues at JPL and throughout the scientific community have worked on the mission.

Sometimes we are asked if there is a rivalry between the commercial and government missions. The fact is that we are more collaborative than competitive. Radio occultation technology is still developing, and missions like COSMIC-2 are important to push forward the government R&D that the government is uniquely capable of undertaking. Meanwhile, for long-term operational use, data from high-quality commercial constellations is the most efficient and cost-effective.

In the end, the more high-quality radio occultation data, the better all of our weather forecasts. We congratulate them on their success and are eager to learn new things from the COSMIC-2 data.

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