Tropika equatorial constellation for Weather and Space Weather Forecasting

The Tropika equatorial constellation of six 27U staellites aims to take advantage of Singapore’s expertise in small satellite technology to build a small satellite platform capable of delivering vertical profiles of temperature and water vapor with the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) radio occultation (RO) technique, ocean wind and moisture and flood inundation information from GNSS reflection (GNSS-R) signals, and in-situ ionospheric plasma density measurements from Low Earth Orbit (LEO). We aim to develop advanced techniques for assimilating GNSS RO and GNSS-R data into the regional SINGV Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) model to improve regional weather forecasting and rainfall prediction. This project shall also develop a data-assimilation system combining satellite and ground-based measurements for monitoring space-weather conditions in South-East Asia and establish useful now-cast and forecast products that can be used to mitigate space weather impacts on communication and positioning systems in the region. We shall work with the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) to assimilate the data to improve the Singapore Satellite Positioning Reference Network (SiReNT), which is a nation-wide GNSS reference station network used for the purpose of high precision and accuracy positioning, navigation and monitoring. Thus not only does the project develop a small satellite platform capable of providing cutting edge weather and space-weather data, it will also develop downstream analytics platforms, working with local agencies, to utilize the data for Singapore`s national needs. The Satellite research centre at Nanyang Technological University will develeop the 27U satellites in collaboration with GeoOptics and Thales.