Satellites Will Track Earth’s Atmosphere, Water, Surface, and Interior

Pasadena, CA (Thursday, July 29, 2021) – A leader in Earth remote sensing, GeoOptics Inc., today announced a major upgrade to its CICERO constellation of satellites to measure our evolving planet. With launches beginning next year, CICERO-2 will form a unified Earth observatory allowing governments, industry, and individual stakeholders to monitor and prepare for the many impacts of climate change.

“In today’s environment, in which precision Earth sensing is becoming ever more critical, GeoOptics is deploying a flexible observatory made up of dozens of small satellites. The real time services will satisfy a broad range of needs for government and civil users around the world,” said Alex Saltman, Chief Executive Officer of GeoOptics.

The first CICERO-2 launches will achieve several key milestones in small satellite Earth observation, including:

Global Precipitation Watch – Monitoring heavy precipitation using Polarimetric radio occultation (RO), an advanced remote sensing technique pioneered by GeoOptics’ collaborators at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the Spanish PAZ mission.

Advanced GNSS Reflectometry (GNSS-R) – Measuring many phenomena near Earth’s surface, including ocean winds, flooding, land cover (snow, ice, vegetation), soil moisture, and topography by means of reflected Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signals. NASA’s recent CYGNSS mission demonstrated the broad utility of the GNSS-R technique. GeoOptics is working with JPL to deploy an advanced operational version, offering dramatically enhanced performance in a small, low-cost package. This collaboration is funded jointly by GeoOptics, the U.S. Air Force, and NASA.

Triple RO – Profiling of atmospheric temperature, pressure, density, and other key properties by means of GNSS–RO. First proposed by company founder Tom Yunck while he was at JPL, GNSS-RO offers unrivalled measurement precision and is an essential contributor to global weather forecasting. The CICERO-2 satellites will yield three times the data volume of their predecessors and many times the volume of any other commercial GNSS-RO satellites.

For GeoOptics strategic partner Climavision, a revolutionary weather data provider, these innovations will enable customers to manage significant risks in a time of global change. “With these new developments in remote sensing technologies from GeoOptics, we’ll be able to further enhance our climate and weather prediction capabilities,” said Chris Goode, CEO and Co-Founder of Climavision. “Through the combination of advanced RO profiles, GNSS-R data about surface conditions and our proprietary gap-filling radar network data, we’ll help customers in weather sensitive industries see weather like never before and give them the tools and data to make informed critical decisions.”

GeoOptics will later extend the system to a range of new applications, including precise mapping of Earth’s gravitational field, which has been named a top NASA Earth science priority for the next decade. This measurement shows the imprint of climate-related movement of water and other key changes in the earth. With internal investment and nearly $4 million from NASA, GeoOptics has devised a unique system architecture for daily gravity mapping with clusters of small satellites. This patented technique promises to improve gravity sensing 20-fold over current methods at a fraction of the cost.

Under the umbrella of the National Oceanographic Partnership Program (NOPP), GeoOptics is also designing a radar instrument to observe ocean vector winds, topography, soil moisture, and a variety of other surface properties with patented multi-satellite radar techniques. NOPP is seeking to sponsor a trial flight of GeoOptics’ Cellular Ocean Altimetry/Scatterometry Technology (COAST) within the next two years.

Tom Yunck, GeoOptics’ Chief Technology Officer, said, “These advanced remote sensing applications – from basic RO to advanced radar and gravity mapping – exploit shared micro technologies that fit in the palm of one’s hand. Each new function builds naturally upon the previous, yielding prodigious observing capacity in a low-cost system of great simplicity and reliability.”

“CICERO-2 is designed to help provide high priority NOAA climate and weather monitoring observations, as ranked by the NOAA Space Platform Requirements Working Group (SPRWG),” said Conrad C. Lautenbacher (Vice Admiral, USN ret.), Executive Chairman of GeoOptics and former NOAA Administrator. “It can also play a key role in supporting crucial Defense Department satellite weather data requirements.”

GeoOptics’ CICERO satellites continue to provide the most precise global profiles of the Earth’s atmosphere available. In February 2021, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) selected GeoOptics to provide the first commercial satellite data to be included in their operational forecasts. In 2020, GeoOptics was selected by NOAA to lead an end-to-end design study for their next-generation low-orbiting weather satellite system, planned to come online later this decade, building in part on RO and GNSS-R technologies.

GeoOptics RO data is the most advanced radio occultation data on the market

GeoOptics congratulates the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on the release of their Commercial Weather Data Pilot (CWDP) Round 2 Summary today and welcomes the agency’s commitment to operational purchases of commercial Global Navigation Satellite System Radio Occultation (GNSS-RO) data.

The report highlights the unique qualities of GeoOptics’ commercial Global Navigation Satellite System Radio Occultation (GNSS-RO) data and its ability to improve weather and space weather forecasts around the world.

“As today’s report demonstrates, commercial satellite data will enable NOAA to make significant improvements in forecasting worldwide within the consistent budget limitations under which it operates,” said GeoOptics CEO Conrad Lautenbacher.

“NOAA’s study also demonstrates that GeoOptics RO data is the most advanced radio occultation data on the market, with the highest sensitivity and the most positive impact on forecasts, particularly in the key 3-5 day range,” said GeoOptics COO Alex Saltman.

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 carry 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, building on a 25-year NASA heritage, GeoOptics is providing the finest 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.

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.