Artist’s rendition of satellites orbiting the Earth – rottenman/123RF Stock Photo
Looking at the latest satellite launches expected in the coming week, starting with the NASA TROPICS mission:
TROPICS
We’re in the calm between a pair of Tropics launches. The snappily titled Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats (TROPICS) mission was developed by NASA.
Each of the cubesats in the Earth Observation mission is equipped with a single microwave spectrometer that operates over twelve spectral bands, with seven measuring temperature, three for humidity, one for precipitation and one for cloud ice. The science objectives for the mission are:
- Relate precipitation structure evolution, including diurnal cycle, to the evolution of the upper-level warm core and associated intensity changes
- Relate the occurrence of intense precipitation cores (convective bursts) to storm intensity evolution
- Relate retrieved environmental moisture measurements to coincident measures of storm structure (including size) and intensity
- Assimilate microwave radiances and/or retrievals in mesoscale and global numerical weather prediction models to assess impacts on storm track and intensity
The mission was due to consist of seven cubesats, and began with the successful launch of the TROPICS Pathfinder cubesat into a 550 km low Earth orbit on the 30th June 2021 as part of a SpaceX Transporter-2 rideshare mission of 88 satellites. A year later the next pair of satellites were launched by Astra Space, but unfortunately the cubesats failed to reach their orbit due to a premature engine shutdown on the second stage of the rocket.
The remaining four cubesats are being launched this month by the New Zealand company, Rocket Labs from its site on the Mahia Peninsula on the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island. The first pair were successfully launched on the 6th May. The final pair are planned to be launched no earlier than 22nd May, although there is a need for them to deployed within 60 days of the earlier launch. In common with all Rocket Labs launches, these missions have their own taglines. The launch at the start of the month was called ‘Rocket Like a Hurricane’, and the planned launch next week is titled ‘Coming To a Storm Near You’.
The TROPICS constellation is expected to make a significant advancement to the monitoring of storms. This mission is also part of a demonstrator programme to show that a constellation approach can provide improved resolution, flexibility, reliability, and low cost launches, serving as a model for future missions.
Satellite Broadband
On Friday this week there is due to be a double SpaceX launch. From Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, in Florida, a Falcon 9 rocket is due to put the next 21 Starlink V2 satellites into orbit. While on the opposite coast at the Vandenberg Space Force Base, in California, another Falcon 9 rocket is due to launch 15 OneWeb first-generation internet satellites together with a second-generation prototype, alongside a set of five Iridum Communications satellites.
Developing the Next Generation
It is exciting to see different parts of the space industry always looking for developments and improvements in the technology they deploy, and in turn the technology available for us to utilise back on Earth.
