Improving Radio Occulation Technologies Through Next-Generation GPS Receiver Design

The weather research community is utilizing a proven RO technique for climate modeling and numerical weather prediction; however, the current space hardware does not provide the optimum science data. This proposal will focus on proposed enhancements to the Integrated GPS Occulation Receiver (IGORTM) L1/L2 GPS flight receivers. Improvement in real time Navigation Solution from <3 meter RMS navigation solution accuracies to <10cm RMS accuracies; Addition of new GPS L5 frequency & L2C Signal processing; Addition of proposed Galileo frequencies and correlators; Addition of capability for real-time corrections via TDRSS or equivalent; Upgrade of hardware to improve radiation tolerance; Provision of extensible GPS science mission capability; Improvements in precision orbit determination capability. The upgrade technology will result in improving the global weather and climate data set by increasing the number of global soundings (including tropospheric) with improved resolutions and higher spatial concentrations.