PlanetiQ was founded to build, launch, and operate a commercial constellation of the highest quality HD GPS-RO weather satellites, with a full constellation of 20 Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites.

Consistent with our mission to bring innovation to satellite weather observations, PlanetiQ’s satellites will carry the fourth-generation “Pyxis” radio occultation (RO) sensor. Pyxis builds on the heritage of the gold standard for RO sensors. The PlanetiQ team developed and built the previous three generations of RO sensors proven on orbit, including 20 flight units.

This state-of-the-art, next-generation RO sensor is smaller, lighter, and consumes less power than prior versions, but has nearly 3x the data collection capability since it receives signals from all four world-wide GNSS constellations (GPS, GLONASS, Galileo and Beidou). Pyxis is the only GPS-RO sensor in such a small package that is powerful enough to provide more than double the amount of data available from the next-best GPS-RO sensors currently on orbit, and to routinely probe down into the lowest layers of the atmosphere where severe weather occurs.

Related: GPS-RO 101