Radio Occultation & IoD Project: GNSS technology serving meteorological observation
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Radio Occultation project selected for demonstration by France Relance
On December 17th, 2021, “Radio Occultation & IoD” project was selected amongst more than 200 applications by France Relance during the “Next Space” event hosted in Paris, France.
With this selection, the French Government intends to support the French Space industry and invest in the future technologies through the France Recovery Plan.
GNSS Radio Occultation to observe thin climate changes
The project Radio Occultation & IoD (ROI) has been selected to launch a nanosatellite based on an existing platform of Hemeria, and a payload of Syntony to observe climate changes in breathtaking new levels of precision. The project intends to demonstrate the great asset that GNSS technology can be in this area.
Indeed, when travelling through the atmosphere, GNSS signal – mostly known to be used for geolocation – is slightly affected by weather conditions and atmospheric effects. Passing through the atmosphere, the GNSS radio signal is bent, in a manner revealing the amounts of the atmosphere’s temperature, pressure or even water vapor content.
Observed from a nanosatellite orbiting the Earth, those radio occultations provide a real-time and precise information on the climate state in the region studied. The general deployment of this technology could lead to a better understanding and anticipation of climate effects, changes, and general behavior.
GNSS Expertise as the backbone of the project
As a GNSS expert and solutions manufacturer, Syntony will provide its GNSS receiver technology and product, SoftSpot, as the payload in the nanosatellite and collect such data.
Already used around the world by many customers for real-time geolocation in extreme conditions, the SoftSpot technology from Syntony will be integrated in a satellite built by many members of the NSF (New Space Factory, located in Toulouse).
With this Radio Occultation project, Syntony intends to mobilize its technologies for a better understanding of our planets’ phenomenon and provide analysts with the best data available, to improve climate anticipation and safety around the world.