This award funds the travel of US scientists to attend the Second International Conference on GPS Radio Occultation (ICGPSRO) in Tao-Yuan, Taiwan. NSF has a longstanding partnership, through the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, with the Taiwanese National Space Organization (NSPO), in the development of space-based GPS radio occultation (RO) as a technology for observing the atmosphere. This partnership produced the Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, the Ionosphere, and Climate (COSMIC), a six-satellite constellation of polar orbiting satellites with GPS receivers (launched in 2006). The COSMIC mission has beeh highly sucessful, and a follow-on mission, COSMIC-2, is under development. COSMIC-2 will consist of two six-satellite constellations, one in polar orbits and one in low-inclination tropical orbits, and the new satellites contain substantial enhancements over the previous generation.
The purpose of this award is to encourage the adoption of COSMIC-2 data by the US research community. The COSMIC-2 tropical constellation, with a planned launch date in Fiscal Year 2016, will provide unprecedented vertical profiles of temperature and moisture in the tropics, as well as coverage of conditions in the tropical ionosphere. This award will allow up to 10 US researchers to attend the meeting and determine the optimal research uses of COSMIC-2 data, and will work with their Taiwanese counterparts to identify areas of common interest and potential US-Taiwanese collaboration.
This award is co-funded by the NSF Office of International Science and Engineering
