The Arctic Observing Mission (AOM) is a variation of AIM-North with an expanded scope that is under consideration by the Government of Canada for implementation with international partners. In addition to the greenhouse gas and air quality instruments, AOM would include a meteorological imager along with a space weather instrument suite.
NOAA’s current meteorological imager in the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) R series is the Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI). Discussions have begun about potential partnership between Canada, NOAA and other organizations to include such an instrument on AOM, but coordinated studies will be required over the next few years to better establish contributions, roles, and responsibilities and position the potential partners for a formal commitment to such an arrangement.
This international, Canadian-led, expanded version of the mission would deliver the greatest benefits for applications spanning northern weather forecasting, climate and greenhouse gas emission monitoring, air quality forecasting, pollutant emission monitoring and space weather science and operational activities.
Figure 4. Arctic Observing Mission (AOM) infographic depicting two satellites observing Canada and other northern regions from a highly elliptical orbit (HEO) configuration with accompanying information on the proposed payloads and applications. (Credit: CSA)