[11-26-07 – Satellite Today] Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. (SSTL) and the University of Surrey have captured a Galileo signal reflected off the ocean surface, demonstrating the potential for determining the weather at sea with remote sensing satellites, SSTL announced Nov. 26.

The GPS Reflectometry Experiment was launched onboard SSTL’s UK-DMC satellite in 2003 to demonstrate the use of GPS reflections to determine the roughness of the ocean. In early November, 20 seconds of data were captured in orbit above the Arafura Sea, which is located north of Australia, and downloaded to Surrey for processing. The shape of the reflection gives an indication of the sea roughness and hence the weather at that place and time, where the wind speed was around 14 mph.

“This is an important achievement in remote sensing and demonstrates the potential offered by Galileo for scientific purposes,” Martin Unwin, head of SSTL’s global navigation satellite systems/GPS team, said in a statement. “A constellation of small satellites could be deployed at low cost to take measurements over the oceans where there are large gaps in forecast knowledge at present. An improved measurement system in space could be used to warn mariners of storms and to provide data for global climate change models.”