WMO OSCAR | Details for Instrument CION-2

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Instrument: CION-2

Instrument details

Acronym	CION-2
Full name	CICERO-2 Instrument for GNSS-RO
Purpose	Temperature/humidity sounding with highest vertical resolution, ocean surface winds, precipitation mapping and space weather. Also potential for monitoring flooding, land cover (snow, ice, vegetation), soil moisture, and topography using GNSS-R techniques.
Short description	2nd generation radio-occultation measuring the bending angle due to refraction during occultation between GNSS and LEO satellites. Also measures reflected signals from the sea surface and has a polarimetric capability.
Background	An improved version of the CION instrument on CICERO satellites to fly on the CICERO-2 satellite series.
Scanning Technique	Limb scanning from 500 km to close-to-surface by time sampling - Azimuth: 90° sectors fore- and aft-
Resolution	About 300 km horizontal, 0.5 km vertical
Coverage / Cycle	3 GNSS constellations tracked.
Mass	10 kg	Power	Data Rate

Providing Agency	GeoOptics
Instrument Maturity	Flown on operational programme
Utilization Period:	2022 to 2035
Last update:	2022-07-18

Detailed characteristics

Satellites this instrument is flying on

Note: a red tag indicates satellites no longer operational, a green tag indicates operational satellites, a blue tag indicates future satellites

Community Initiative for Continuing Earth Radio Occultation (GeoOptics)
- CICERO-2 (see instrument status) Aug 2022 - 2035

Instrument classification

Earth observation instrument
Active and radio-occultation sensor
GNSS radio-occultation

WIGOS Subcomponents

Subcomponent 4
GNSS radio occultation (commercial)
GNSS radio occultation constellation (commercial)

Mission objectives

Primary mission objectives

Atmospheric temperature
Relative humidity

Evaluation of Measurements

The following list indicates which measurements can typically be retrieved from this category of instrument. To see a full Gap Analysis by Variable, click on the respective variable.

Note: table can be sorted by clicking on the column headers
Note: * Primary mission objective.

Variable	Relevance for measuring this variable	Operational limitations	Explanation
Atmospheric temperature*	1 - primary	Inaccurate in low troposphere.	Flown in a satellite cluster. Two directional antennas, three GNSS systems tracked, about 1500 soundings/day per satellite
Geoid	4 - fair	Highly indirect.	Radio-occultation processing implies precise orbitography. Geoid derived from multi-temporal analysis
Gravity field	5 - marginal	Highly indirect.	Radio-occultation processing implies precise orbitography. Gravity field derived from multi-temporal analysis
Height of the top of PBL	1 - primary	No specific limitation.	Flown in a satellite cluster. Two directional antennas, three GNSS systems tracked, about 1500 soundings/day per satellite. PBL top measured as discontinuity of the refraction index
Height of the tropopause	1 - primary	No specific limitation.	Flown in a satellite cluster. Two directional antennas, three GNSS systems tracked, about 1500 soundings/day per satellite. Tropopause height measured as discontinuity of the refraction index
Precipitation intensity at surface (liquid or solid)	5 - marginal	Heavy precipitation only	Precipitation detected by de-polarisation measurement (experimental)
Specific humidity	2 - very high	Inaccurate in high troposphere.	Flown in a satellite cluster. Two directional antennas, three GNSS systems tracked, about 1500 soundings/day per satellite
Temperature of the tropopause	1 - primary	No specific limitation.	Flown in a satellite cluster. Two directional antennas, three GNSS systems tracked, about 1500 soundings/day per satellite
Atmospheric density	1 - primary	No specific limitation.	Measuring atmospheric density
Electron Density	1 - primary	No specific limitation.	Flown in a satellite cluster. Two directional antennas, three GNSS systems tracked, about 1500 soundings/day per satellite
Ionospheric Total Electron Content (TEC)	2 - very high	No specific limitation.	Flown in a satellite cluster. Two directional antennas, three GNSS systems tracked, about 1500 soundings/day per satellite
Ionospheric Scintillation	4 - fair	No specific limitation.	Flown in a satellite cluster. Two directional antennas, three GNSS systems tracked, about 1500 soundings/day per satellite
Wind speed (near surface)	5 - marginal	Infrequent coverage.. Over sea only.	Wind speed estimated from the intensity of signals from different incidence angles