The first of a pair of climate satellites designed for NASA to study heat emissions at Earth’s poles is in orbit after lifting off atop Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket from its Launch Complex 1 the company in Māhia, New Zealand at 7:41 PM NZST (3:41 PM). am EDT) on Saturday.
The agency’s PREFIRE (Polar Radiant Energy in the Far-InfraRed Experiment) mission consists of two shoebox-sized cube satellites, or CubeSats, that will measure the amount of heat the Earth radiates into space from two of the coldest, most remote areas on earth. . 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 – giving our scientists a detailed view of how Earth’s polar regions influence how much energy our planet absorbs and releases,” said Karen St. Germain, NASA’s director Earth Science Division in Washington. “This will improve the prediction of sea ice loss, ice sheet melting and sea level rise, providing a better understanding of how our planet’s system will change in the coming years – crucial information for farmers planning changes in weather and water, fishing fleets navigating changing seas and coastal communities building resilience.”
Ground controllers successfully established communications with the CubeSat at 8:48 EDT. The second PREFIRE CubeSat will depart from Launch Complex 1 on its own Electron rocket in the coming days. After a 30-day checkout period during which engineers and scientists will ensure that both CubeSats are operating normally, the mission is expected to last ten months.
At the heart of the PREFIRE mission is Earth’s energy budget: the balance between the incoming heat energy from the sun and the outgoing heat emitted by the planet. The difference between the two determines the temperature and climate of the planet. Much of the heat radiated from the Arctic and Antarctic is emitted as far-infrared radiation, but there are currently no detailed measurements of this type of energy.
The water vapor content of the atmosphere, together with the presence, structure and composition of clouds, influences the amount of far-infrared radiation that escapes into space from the Earth’s poles. Data collected by PREFIRE will provide researchers with information about where and when far-infrared energy radiates into space from the Arctic and Antarctic environments.
“The PREFIRE CubeSats may be small, but they will fill a major gap in our knowledge of Earth’s energy budget,” said Laurie Leshin, director of 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 as a result of global warming.”
The mission’s CubeSats each carry an instrument called a thermal infrared spectrometer, which uses specially shaped mirrors and sensors to measure infrared wavelengths. Miniaturizing the instruments to fit on CubeSats made it necessary to shrink some parts and scale up other components.
“Our planet is changing rapidly, and in places like the Arctic, in ways that humans have never experienced before,” said Tristan L’Ecuyer, PREFIRE principal investigator, University of Wisconsin, Madison. “NASA’s PREFIRE will give us new measurements of the far-infrared wavelengths emitted from Earth’s poles, which we can use to improve climate and weather models and help people around the world cope with the impacts of climate change. ”
NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, in collaboration 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. from Long Beach, California.
For more information about PREFIRE, visit:
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/prefire/
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Karen Fox/Elizabeth Vlock
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600 / 202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / elizabeth.a.vlock@nasa.gov
Jane J. Lee / Andrew Wang
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.
818-354-0307 / 626-379-6874
jane.j.lee@jpl.nasa.gov / andrew.wang@jpl.nasa.gov