All six of Taiwan’s Formosat-7/COSMIC-2 satellites, which were launched to improve weather forecasting, have reached their mission orbits, the Ministry of Science and Technology said in a statement yesterday.
The satellites, launched by Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) to an orbit 720km from Earth in June 2019, have been gradually moved to their designated mission orbits of 540km to 550km over the past 18 months, the statement said, adding that the process was completed on Wednesday last week.
The project is a joint operation between the National Space Organization and the US’ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to improve weather data collection in the tropics, the ministry said.
Photo: CNA
By moving into their mission orbits, the satellites can better cover the area 50 degrees north and south of the equator and make up for a lack of weather data there.
Data collected by the constellation of six satellites were first made available on a trial basis in December 2019, before being made public on March 7 last year, the ministry said, adding that the data have already helped improve the accuracy of weather forecasts by 10 to 11 percent.
According to the National Space Organization, the satellite constellation can “receive GPS signals from the United States and [Global Navigation Satellite System] signals from Russia,” and “by measuring radio occultation signals, atmospheric parameters such as humidity and the electron concentration of the ionosphere can be derived.”
It can collect 4,000 pieces of data per day, the ministry said.
This means forecasters can use the information to better predict the formation of typhoons and their movements, it said.
In addition to the Central Weather Bureau, and research teams at National Central University and National Cheng Kung University, research bodies under the NOAA and the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, as well as meteorological organizations around the world are using data collected by Formosat-7, the ministry said.
A Ministry of Foreign Affairs official yesterday said that a delegation that visited China for an APEC meeting did not receive any kind of treatment that downgraded Taiwan’s sovereignty. Department of International Organizations Director-General Jonathan Sun (孫儉元) said that he and a group of ministry officials visited Shenzhen, China, to attend the APEC Informal Senior Officials’ Meeting last month. The trip went “smoothly and safely” for all Taiwanese delegates, as the Chinese side arranged the trip in accordance with long-standing practices, Sun said at the ministry’s weekly briefing. The Taiwanese group did not encounter any political suppression, he said. Sun made the remarks when
PREPAREDNESS: Given the difficulty of importing ammunition during wartime, the Ministry of National Defense said it would prioritize ‘coproduction’ partnerships A newly formed unit of the Marine Corps tasked with land-based security operations has recently replaced its aging, domestically produced rifles with more advanced, US-made M4A1 rifles, a source said yesterday. The unnamed source familiar with the matter said the First Security Battalion of the Marine Corps’ Air Defense and Base Guard Group has replaced its older T65K2 rifles, which have been in service since the late 1980s, with the newly received M4A1s. The source did not say exactly when the upgrade took place or how many M4A1s were issued to the battalion. The confirmation came after Chinese-language media reported
The Taiwanese passport ranked 33rd in a global listing of passports by convenience this month, rising three places from last month’s ranking, but matching its position in January last year. The Henley Passport Index, an international ranking of passports by the number of designations its holder can travel to without a visa, showed that the Taiwan passport enables holders to travel to 139 countries and territories without a visa. Singapore’s passport was ranked the most powerful with visa-free access to 192 destinations out of 227, according to the index published on Tuesday by UK-based migration investment consultancy firm Henley and Partners. Japan’s and
BROAD AGREEMENT: The two are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff to 15% and a commitment for TSMC to build five more fabs, a ‘New York Times’ report said Taiwan and the US have reached a broad consensus on a trade deal, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations said yesterday, after a report said that Washington is set to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent. The New York Times on Monday reported that the two nations are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent and commit Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to building at least five more facilities in the US. “The agreement, which has been under negotiation for months, is being legally scrubbed and could be announced this month,” the paper said,
RSS