Sentinel-6 Radio Occultations for the Next Decade

The Sentinel-6 mission will include a radio occultation instrument based on the Cosmic-2 configuration. Sentinel-6 will be composed of two spacecraft with one launching in the first half of the 2020 decade and the other launching approximately five and a half years later. Each spacecraft will carry a fore and aft phase array antenna to provide high quality radio occultation measurements. In this presentation, the orbit altitude, antenna configuration, receiver design, and expected performance are shown to meet weather quality radio occultation requirements.