The UK’s TechDemoSat-1 (TDS-1), launched 2014, has demonstrated the use of global positioning system (GPS) signals for monitoring ocean winds and sea ice. Here it is shown, for the first time, that Galileo and BeiDou signals detected by TDS-1 show similar promise. TDS-1 made seven raw data collections, recovering returns from Galileo and BeiDou, between November 2015 and March 2019. The retrieved open ocean delay Doppler maps (DDMs) are similar to those from GPS. Over sea ice, the Galileo DDMs show a distinctive triple peak. Analysis, adapted from that for GPS DDMs, gives Galileo’s signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), which is found to be inversely sensitive to wind speed, as for GPS. A Galileo track transiting from open ocean to sea ice shows a strong instantaneous SNR response. These results demonstrate the potential of future spaceborne constellations of GNSS-R (global navigation satellite system–reflectometry) instruments for exploiting signals from multiple systems: GPS, Galileo, and BeiDou.

This paper describes the development of an Airborne Wind Vector Scatterometer for low-resolution wind speed measurements. The scatterometer is designed to meet a wind speed accuracy requirement of 1 m/s. In this ad hoc and low-budget project, the development of the instrument exploited some already existing subsystems. The development started from the definition of the scientific system requirements and ended with two experimental flights for wind vector retrieval from three test areas in the Gulf of Finland, the Baltic Sea. One of the flights was planned for a simultaneous overpass with the TDS-1 satellite that was conducting Global Navigations Satellite System – Reflectometry (GNSS-R) measurements. The results confirm the measurement capabilities of the GNSS-R technology and the desired 1 m/s wind speed accuracy of the scatterometer that was developed.