SATELLITE DATA ARE AN IMPORTANT COMPONENT OF THE EARTH S ATMOSPHERIC OBSERVING SYSTEM. NASA IS EXECUTING A COMMERCIAL EARTH OBSERVATION DATA-BUY PROGRAM TO DETERMINE IF THESE DATA COULD HELP SATISFY NASA S FUTURE OBSERVATIONAL REQUIREMENTS. NASA PLANS TO BUY GLOBAL NAVIGATION SATELLITE SYSTEM (GNSS) RADIO OCCULTATION (RO) RAW LEVEL-0 DATA AND LEVEL-2 PRODUCTS FROM SPIRE. FOR SUCH DATA TO HAVE A POSITIVE IMPACT ON ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE RESEARCH IT IS IMPORTANT FOR THE DATA TO BE OF HIGH QUALITY AND FOR THE ERROR CHARACTERISTICS OF THE DATA TO BE WELL UNDERSTOOD. WITH THIS PROPOSAL THE UCAR COSMIC PROGRAM OFFICE PLANS TO SUPPORT NASA S COMMERCIAL DATA BUY PROJECT BY 1) PROCESSING THE COMMERCIALLY-PROVIDED LEVEL-0 RAW RO DATA INTO LEVEL-2 PROFILES AND PERFORMING BASIC DATA QUALITY ASSESSMENTS AND 2) ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF THE UCAR GENERATED LEVEL-2 PROFILE DATA ON STUDIES OF THE TROPICAL TROPO-PAUSE AND MARINE BOUNDARY LAYER (MBL). UCAR DOES NOT PLAN TO PROCESS AND EVALUATE SPACE WEATHER IONOSPHERIC DATA IN THIS PROJECT DUE TO LACK OF AVAILABLE FUNDING. THE COMMERCIALLY-PROVIDED EARTH OBSERVING DATA THAT NASA PROVIDES TO UCAR FOR THIS ASSESSMENT AND UCAR S EVALUATION OF THAT DATA WILL NOT BE SHARED WITH ANY OTHER ENTITIES WITHOUT NASA S PRIOR APPROVAL. PROJECT DESCRIPTION