FORMOSAT-3/ COSMIC (F3C) is a joint Taiwan - US science mission for weather, climate, space weather and geodetic research. The F3C mission was successfully launched on 15 April 2006. Six identical micro satellites, each carrying an advanced GPS radio occultation receiver, a Tiny Ionospheric Photometer (TIP) and a Tri Band Beacon (TBB) were deployed. Ten months after launch three satellites have been raised to their final orbit altitude at 800km while three more are still maneuvered by Taiwan's National Space Office (NSPO) to achieve the final constellation of six orbital planes separated by 30 degrees.

While the constellation is still deployed we are already publishing between 1800-2400 daily profiles in the neutral atmosphere and over 2500 daily electron density profiles and total electron content arcs, TIP radiance products, and data from ground based TBB data. The data have already demonstrated their value for operational weather forecasting, hurricane forecasting, and investigations of the atmospheric boundary layer. The data have been used extensively to test ionospheric models and their use in operational space weather models is under development.

Workshop objectives:
1. Dialogue between data providers and data users
2. Update the user community on the status of the mission
3. Status of CDAAC data processing and data availability
4. Scientific investigations with COSMIC data
5. Results obtained with GPS, TIP and TBB data
6. Validation experiments during the first year of the mission
7. Comaprison with other sensors - including AIRS and other RO missions (CHAMP, SAC-C, METOP, RoadRunner)
8. Status of orbit determination - orbit quality of the LEOs use of dual POD antennas
9. Data assimilation into numerical models - Impact studies from NVEP, ECMWF, UKMO and other leading weather centers
10. Use of the data in ionospheric models - early operational tests
11. Future plans for validation experiments, campaigns, or other projects in the neutral atmosphere and ionosphere

We invite participants that have used or plan to use data from the F3C mission to contribute presentations or posters to this workshop. The success of the mission depends on broad participation from the science community. By March 2007 we have ~ 450 registered F3C data users and we are looking forward to understanding their uses of the data and to feedback that will help us improve our data products.