Feasibility of Near-Real-Time GOLD Data Products

A primary limitation for accurate specification and forecasting of the thermosphere-ionosphere (TI) system is uncertainty in the system forcing. This significantly impacts users who have operational and real-time interests in the current and future state of the TI system. Since Global-Scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) observations are expected to provide information about both the current state and forcing of the TI system, GOLD products could be an operational asset if they could be provided in near real time. Production of GOLD data products requires knowledge of the satellite pointing and location. The current scientific processing implementation contains an operationally significant delay to await definitive location and as-flown pointing. We present the results of a demonstration low-latency processing system that assumes the nominal satellite position and pointing to produce low-latency GOLD data products. The resulting products are reasonably similar to the scientific version but are available within minutes rather than hours.