NOAA, Taiwan Developing Plan for Weather Satellite Program

NOAA, Taiwan Developing Plan for Weather Satellite Program
(Space News) April 9, 2010, By Turner Brinton
The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Taiwan have developed initial requirements for a collaborative weather satellite program, and will spend the rest of the year putting together an acquisition strategy with an eye toward launching the satellites starting in 2014, U.S. government officials said. The satellites will use a relatively new method for obtaining atmospheric data called GPS radio occultation, which has been used in operational weather forecasting since a demonstration constellation was launched in 2006.

South Korea: New Satellites to Improve Daily Life

New Satellites to Improve Daily Life

(Korea Times) March 8, 2010, By Kim Tong-hyung

The hit-or-miss weather forecasts are on everyone's list of the most annoying things in everyday life here. But Korea's space agency claims to have a remedy ready when about $314 million state-of-the-art meteorological satellite is launched next month. The Communication, Ocean and Meteorological Satellite (COMS-1), which will be strapped to a European rocket and blasted into geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) next month, is the first in a series of new Korean satellites to be launched from this year to 2013. The Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) said that the wealth of satellite images, data and communications functions provided by the new fleet of craft will have visible effects in science research, industry and the daily lives of people. This would also help establish the country as a provider of quality space data and contribute to finding a niche in the heated Asian space race.