UENR COMMISSIONS COSMIC-2 GROUND STATION - EORIC

The Earth Observation Research and Innovation Centre (EORIC) of the University of Energy and Natural Resources (UENR) has commissioned the COSMIC-2 Ground Station. The event took place on Tuesday, 4th July 2017. COSMIC-2 programme is a joint collaboration between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the United States Airforce and the Taiwan National Space Organization (NSPO) that will collect atmospheric data for weather prediction and for ionosphere, climate and gravity research using 12 remote sensing microsatellites. The ground station which is the only one in Africa forms part of a network of 8 others situated in Taiwan, Guam, Hawaii, Honduras, Brazil, Kuwait, Mauritius and Australia. This system will provide accurate data for numerical weather prediction data to help improve the quality of forecast from the Ghana Meteorological Agency and the whole world. During the ceremony, the Vice-Chancellor of UENR, Professor Harrison Dapaah appealed to provide the centre with GHS1 million to enable it to address its challenges. He explained that the centre needed a building facility, fast internet access, a generator and funding research activities. Mr. Richard Ullman, the representative of NOAA for the COSMIC-2 Programme, explained the operations of the programme and its benefit to the university and the world at large. He said that COSMIC-2 was a follow-on mission of the COSMIC-1 launched in April 2006. Mr. Ullman indicated that the result of each observation was called an atmospheric profile and that the COSMIC-2 system would make about 6000 of these profiles every day. Dr. Amos T. Kabo-bah, the head of the EORIC was confident that the Centre could help Ghana and Africa to leverage both “in-situ and satellite data” for improving decision-making in the areas of health, agriculture, ecosystems, climate, disasters, weather and Biodiversity. Dr. Kabo-bah also said that more ground station was expected by 2018 from SpaceX, the South-African Space Agency and Atlas Corporation. He concluded by saying “With the completion of these future initiatives, EORIC will become the eye of Africa for delivering space-based solutions for policymaking in Ghana and Africa.”