Washington – GeoOptics plans to deploy a collection of dozens of small devices over the next five years to collect meteorological and other Earth data for government and commercial customers.
The company, based in Pasadena, California, announced on July 29 that it will begin launching a line of satellites called CICERO-2 next year, which are upgraded versions of the CICERO satellites it previously released to collect used data from global radioculture. satellite navigation system (GNSS) in the weather forecast.
CICERO-2 satellites will continue to collect GNSS radio occult data, but will also receive GNSS signals reflected from Earth to measure ocean winds, soil moisture and other surface conditions. NASA’s Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS), a set of eight small devices launched in 2016, demonstrates this technology for studying tropical weather systems. The satellites will also be able to measure heavy rainfall using a technique called polarimetric radio-occlusion, again using GNSS signals.
“It’s all based on essentially one tool in slightly different forms,” said Alex Saltman, CEO of GeoOptics. “Using this universal tool, our observations are defined by software rather than hardware.”
As long as you use a universal tool, there will be some satellite customization. “Each satellite is likely to make multiple measurements, but not all,” he said, depending on factors such as their orbits. While the original CICERO satellites were 6U cubic meters, the new satellites will be a mixture of 6U and 12U cubic meters, with several possibly larger ones.
The first CICERO-2 satellites will be launched in early 2022, and will follow later in the year. The long-term goal is to launch about 50 in five years.
Later satellites may carry additional tools. GeoOptics is working on radar instruments to measure ocean winds and other surface properties. This instrument, developed with the support of the National Oceanographic Partnership Program, could be ready for flight by the end of 2023, Saltman said. “The radar instrument will be a true workhorse for a wide variety of measurements, for both government and commercial applications.”
The company is also working on an approach to using small computers to map the Earth’s gravitational field, similar to the GRACE Gravity and Climate Recovery Experiment and GRACE’s Follow On missions, which measure the change in mass associated with water movement. A decade-long study of Earth science, published in early 2018, recommended that NASA pursue a successor to GRACE Follow On.
This system, he said, will be developed jointly with NASA to implement the recommendation for the decade, and the company has won contracts for NASA technology to work early on the concept. “We have instrument design and do all the other work to prove how the constellation would work.”
Saltman said GeoOptics has enough funding to start deploying CICERO-2 satellites. Later satellites can be financed through some combination of cash flow or additional investment.
GeoOptics expects revenue to come from a combination of government and commercial customers. In addition to NASA’s potential Earth science business, the company has a contract with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to provide GNSS weather culture data for weather forecasting.
“CICERO-2 is designed to provide high-priority NOAA observations for climate and weather monitoring,” said Konrad Lautenbacher, CEO of GeoOptics and former NOAA administrator. “It can also play a key role in maintaining important meteorological data requirements of the Ministry of Defense.”
The company also sees interest from commercial customers, such as Climavision, which includes GeoOptics data in the forecasts it develops for customers in various industries. “We work with them to create weather forecasts for customers with high leverage, such as delivery companies and airlines that need the best forecasts,” Saltman said. “We are seeing a lot of excitement in the market for this product.”
“State markets are important, but they are moving slowly,” he said. “Commercial markets may be less complex to begin with, but they are also where much of the long-term growth is.”
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