WASHINGTON, May 25, 2024
/PRNewswire/ -- The first of a pair of climate satellites designed
to study heat emissions at Earth's poles for NASA is in orbit after
lifting off atop Rocket Lab's Electron rocket from the company's
Launch Complex 1 in Māhia, New
Zealand at 7:41 p.m. NZST (3:41
a.m. EDT) on Saturday.
The agency's PREFIRE (Polar Radiant Energy in the Far-InfraRed
Experiment) mission consists of two shoebox-size cube satellites,
or CubeSats, that will measure the amount of heat Earth radiates
into space from two of the coldest, most remote regions on the
planet. Data from the PREFIRE mission will help researchers better
predict how Earth's ice, seas, and weather will change in a warming
world.
"NASA's innovative PREFIRE mission will fill a gap in our
understanding of the Earth system – providing our scientists a
detailed picture of how Earth's polar regions influence how much
energy our planet absorbs and releases," said Karen St. Germain, director of NASA's Earth
Science Division in Washington.
"This will improve prediction of sea ice loss, ice sheet melt, and
sea level rise, creating a better understanding of how our planet's
system will change in the coming years — crucial information to
farmers tracking changes in weather and water, fishing fleets
working in changing seas, and coastal communities building
resilience."
Ground controllers successfully established communications with
the CubeSat at 8:48 EDT. The second
PREFIRE CubeSat will set off on its own Electron rocket from Launch
Complex 1 in the coming days. Following a 30-day checkout period
during which engineers and scientists will make sure both CubeSats
are working normally, the mission is expected to operate for 10
months.
At the heart of the PREFIRE mission is Earth's energy budget –
the balance between incoming heat energy from the Sun and the
outgoing heat given off by the planet. The difference between the
two is what determines the planet's temperature and climate. A lot
of the heat radiated from the Arctic and Antarctica is emitted as far-infrared
radiation, but there is currently no detailed measurement of this
type of energy.
The water vapor content of the atmosphere, along with the
presence, structure, and composition of clouds, influences the
amount of far-infrared radiation that escapes into space from
Earth's poles. Data collected from PREFIRE will give researchers
information on where and when far-infrared energy radiates from the
Arctic and Antarctic environments into space.
"The PREFIRE CubeSats may be small, but they're going to close a
big gap in our knowledge about Earth's energy budget," said
Laurie Leshin, director, NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Southern
California. "Their observations will help us understand the
fundamentals of Earth's heat balance, allowing us to better predict
how our ice, seas, and weather will change in the face of global
warming."
The mission's CubeSats each carry an instrument called a thermal
infrared spectrometer, which use specially shaped mirrors and
sensors to measure infrared wavelengths. Miniaturizing the
instruments to fit on CubeSats necessitated downsizing some parts
while scaling up other components.
"Our planet is changing quickly, and in places like the Arctic,
in ways that people have never experienced before," said Tristan
L'Ecuyer, PREFIRE's principal investigator, University of Wisconsin, Madison. "NASA's PREFIRE
will give us new measurements of the far-infrared wavelengths being
emitted from Earth's poles, which we can use to improve climate and
weather models and help people around the world deal with the
consequences of climate change."
NASA's Launch Services Program, based out of the agency's
Kennedy Space Center in
Florida, in partnership with
NASA's Earth System Science Pathfinder Program is providing the
launch service as part of the agency's Venture-class Acquisition of
Dedicated and Rideshare (VADR) launch services contract.
The PREFIRE mission was jointly developed by NASA and the
University of Wisconsin-Madison. NASA
JPL manages the mission for the agency's Science Mission
Directorate and provided the spectrometers. Blue Canyon
Technologies built the CubeSats and the University of Wisconsin-Madison will process the
data the instruments collect. The launch services provider is
Rocket Lab USA Inc. of
Long Beach, California.
To learn more about PREFIRE, visit:
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/prefire/
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SOURCE NASA