NASA will launch 6 small satellites to monitor and study tropical cyclones – Boost thanks to that?

From NASA

NASA will launch two of the first six small satellites no earlier than June 12, which will study the formation and development of tropical cyclones almost every hour — about four to six times more often than current satellites. This is the first of three CubeSat launches for NASA Time-analyzed observations of the precipitation structure and intensity of storms with a small constellation (TROPICS) mission. The remaining satellites will be put into their orbits in the next two launches this year. If successful, the TROPICS satellites will be spread over three orbital planes to cover the globe more often.

“TROPICS will provide us with very routine views of tropical cyclones, provide insight into their formation, intensity and interactions with their environment, and provide important data important for hurricane monitoring and forecasting,” said Scott Braun, meteorologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

In general, weather satellites are currently in low Earth orbit – such as NOAA-20NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration NPP Suomi satellites and other satellites from NASA partners – revisit the storm once every four to six hours. “So we’re missing out on a lot of what’s going on,” explains Bill Blackwell, principal investigator of the TROPICS mission and a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, Massachusetts. storm. The constellation TROPICS will provide scientists with more frequent updates, complementing data collected by existing low-Earth orbit weather satellites and allowing scientists to view individual storms from beginning to end.

The three launches will place six satellites in pairs in three slightly different low-Earth orbits, all at an angle of nearly 30 degrees to the equator. This will maximize the amount of time the satellite spends passing over the part of Earth where most tropical cyclones form – a horizontal band that stretches from roughly the Mid-Atlantic of the United States to the southern coast. of Australia, approximately between 38 degrees north and south latitudes. Ideally, one of the TROPICS satellites would pass through any given area in that frequency band about once an hour.

All matter – including water vapor, oxygen and clouds in the atmosphere – emits energy in the form of heat and light. phenomenon known as Planck’s Law. Each TROPICS satellite has an instrument called a microwave irradiometer to measure these emissions. The sensors take passive measurements similar to those taken by the Advanced Technology Microwave Gauge (ATMS) instrument on current low-Earth orbit weather satellites.

The microwave radiation meter on each TROPICS satellite measures microwave frequencies between 90 and 205 gigahertz. These frequencies tell scientists about the temperature, precipitation, humidity, and other characteristics of the storm and the surrounding atmosphere. The amount of heat and light – or radiation – at these frequencies coming from different heights, allows the TROPICS satellite to create a three-dimensional image of the environment of the cyclones. The frequencies used by TROPICS are also very sensitive to ice and cloud characteristics, which will help meteorologists study how tropical cyclones develop and strengthen. However, TROPICS’ frequencies are less sensitive to the temperature and humidity below the clouds – something the ATMS instruments on the NOAA-20 and Suomi-NPP satellites outperform. Together, data from TROPICS and current weather satellites will help scientists improve their understanding of tropical cyclones.

“With the constellation TROPICS, we will be making much more frequent observations of tropical cyclones, and at wavelengths that can help us understand the thermodynamic structure in the eye and in the storm environment,” Blackwell said.

If all goes according to plan, six TROPICS satellites will join the TROPICS Pathfinder satellite, a proof of concept CubeSat to be launched in June 2021. Since then, Line detectors have captured images of several tropical cyclonesAs Hurricane Ida on the United States, Cyclone Batsirai over Madagascar, and Super Typhoon Mindulle in eastern Japan. The navigation satellite also provided an opportunity for the TROPICS research team to fine-tune the satellite’s software and operations prior to the constellation launch. In addition, the pathfinder has been calibrated and will be able to serve as a calibration reference for the remaining TROPICS satellites. That will help TROPICS CubeSats start generating useful data quickly.

“The TROPICS team is delighted to bring this constellation to life, especially after the success of the pathfinder,” said Blackwell.

Banner image caption: Image of Tropical Cyclone Batsirai over the island of Madagascar taken by the TROPICS Pathfinder satellite in February 2022. Banner image credit: NASA

Via Sofia Bates

From NASA Earth Science News Group

Last updated: June 10, 2022

Editor: Sofie Bates