A group of satellites called FORMOSAT-7 reached its mission orbit on Monday morning. The joint Taiwan-US mission consists of six separate satellites, orbiting between 540 km and 550 km above the Earth’s surface.
A SpaceX Heavy Falcon rocket launched FORMOSAT-7 to an elevation of 720 km on June 25, 2019. Scientists spent one month running diagnostics on the satellites, before transitioning them to a lower orbit. That process took about a year and a half.
The goal of the program is to provide more accurate weather data. Taiwan’s Ministry of Technology says the satellites can provide round-the-clock data from the Earth’s atmosphere and ionosphere.
Even before the satellites reached their mission orbit, the data FORMOSAT-7 provided helped to reduce discrepancies in 24-hour weather predictions by 10-11%. It also helped detect typhoons earlier.