Jump to content

Meet NASA’s Twin Spacecraft Headed to the Ends of the Earth


NASA

Recommended Posts

  • Publishers

5 min read

Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)

Arctic Ocean
Sunlight glints off patches of ice in the Chukchi Sea, a part of the Arctic Ocean. NASA’s PREFIRE mission to Earth’s polar regions will explore how a warming world will affect sea ice loss, ice sheet melt, and sea level rise.
NASA/Kathryn Hansen

Launching in spring 2024, the two small satellites of the agency’s PREFIRE mission will fill in missing data from Earth’s polar regions.

Two new miniature NASA satellites will start crisscrossing Earth’s atmosphere in a few months, detecting heat lost to space. Their observations from the planet’s most bone-chilling regions will help predict how our ice, seas, and weather will change in the face of global warming.

About the size of a shoebox, the cube satellites, or CubeSats, comprise a mission called PREFIRE, short for Polar Radiant Energy in the Far-InfraRed Experiment. Equipped with technology proven at Mars, their objective is to reveal the full spectrum of heat loss from Earth’s polar regions for the first time, making climate models more accurate.

PREFIRE has been jointly developed by NASA and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, with team members from the universities of Michigan and Colorado.

The mission starts with Earth’s energy budget. In a planetary balancing act, the amount of heat energy the planet receives from the Sun should ideally be offset by the amount it radiates out of the Earth system into space. The difference between incoming and outgoing energy determines Earth’s temperature and shapes our climate.

PREFIRE mission will send two CubeSats – depicted in an artist’s concept orbiting Earth
The PREFIRE mission will send two CubeSats – depicted in an artist’s concept orbiting Earth – into space to study how much heat the planet absorbs and emits from its polar regions. These measurements will inform climate and ice models.
NASA/JPL-Caltech

Polar regions play a key role in the process, acting like Earth’s radiator fins. The stirring of air and water, through weather and ocean currents, moves heat energy received in the tropics toward the poles, where it is emitted as thermal infrared radiation – the same type of energy you feel from a heat lamp. Some 60% of that energy flows out to space in far-infrared wavelengths that have never been systematically measured.

PREFIRE can close that gap. “We have the potential to discover some fundamental things about how our planet works,” said Brian Drouin, scientist and deputy principal investigator for the mission at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

“In climate projections, a lot of the uncertainty comes in from what we don’t know about the North and South poles and how efficiently radiation is emitted into space,” he said. “The importance of that radiation wasn’t realized for much of the Space Age, but we know now and are aiming to measure it.”

Launching from New Zealand two weeks apart in May, each satellite will carry a thermal infrared spectrometer. The JPL-designed instruments include specially shaped mirrors and detectors for splitting and measuring infrared light. Similar technology is used by the Mars Climate Sounder on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to explore the Red Planet’s atmosphere and weather.

Miniaturizing the instruments to fit on CubeSats was a challenge for the PREFIRE engineering team. They developed a scaled-down design optimized for the comparatively warm conditions of our own planet. Weighing less than 6 pounds (3 kilograms), the instruments make readings using a device called a thermocouple, similar to the sensors found in many household thermostats.

Ground Zero for Climate Change

To maximize coverage, the PREFIRE twins will orbit Earth along different paths, overlapping every few hours near the poles.

Since the 1970s, the Arctic has warmed at least three times faster than anywhere else on Earth. Winter sea ice there has shrunk by more than 15,900 square miles (41,200 square kilometers) per year, a loss of 2.6% per decade relative to the 1981-2010 average. A change is occurring on the opposite side of the planet, too: Antarctica’s ice sheets are losing mass at an average rate of about 150 billion tons per year.

The implications of these changes are far reaching. Fluctuations in sea ice shape polar ecosystems and influence the temperature as well as circulation of the ocean. Meltwater from mile-thick ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica is responsible for about one-third of the rise in global mean sea level since 1993.

“If you change the polar regions, you also fundamentally change the weather around the world,” said Tristan L’Ecuyer, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the mission’s principal investigator. “Extreme storms, flooding, coastal erosion – all of these things are influenced by what’s going on in the Arctic and Antarctic.”

To understand and project such changes, scientists use climate models that take into account many physical processes. Running the models multiple times (each time under slightly different conditions and assumptions) results in an ensemble of climate projections. Assumptions about uncertain parameters, such as how efficiently the poles emit thermal radiation, can significantly impact the projections.

PREFIRE will supply new data on a range of climate variables, including atmospheric temperature, surface properties, water vapor, and clouds. Ultimately, more information will yield a more accurate vision of a world in flux, said L’Ecuyer.

“As our climate models converge, we’ll start to really understand what the future’s going to look like in the Arctic and Antarctic,” he added.

News Media Contacts

Jane J. Lee / Andrew Wang
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-0307 / 626-379-6874

Written by Sally Younger

2024-014

View the full article

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Similar Topics

    • By NASA
      Name: Dr. Inia Soto Ramos
      Title and Formal Job Classification: Associate Research Scientist
      Organization: Ocean Ecology Laboratory (Code 616) via Morgan State University and GESTAR II cooperative agreement
      Dr. Inia Soto Ramos is an associate research scientist with NASA’s PACE — the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem mission — at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.Photo courtesy of Inia Soto Ramos What do you do and what is most interesting about your role here at Goddard?
      I am currently co-leading the validation efforts for PACE, NASA’s Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem mission. I am also part of NASA’s SeaBASS (SeaWiFS Bio-optical Archive and Storage System) team, which is responsible for archiving, distributing, and managing field data used for validation and development of satellite ocean color data products. It has been exciting to be a part of a satellite mission, to see it being built, tested and launched. And now, be able to validate the data and in the near future, use the data to do science.
      What is your educational background?
      I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in biology from The University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez Campus, and I have a master’s and Ph.D. in Biological Oceanography from the University of South Florida.
      How did you get your foot in the door at NASA?
      While I was a student at the University of Puerto Rico, I saw a flyer for a program called PaSCoR (Partnership for Spatial and Computational Research). It was a partnership between universities, NASA and other institutions with the intent to train students in remote sensing and Geographical Information Systems. Although, this program was targeted mainly for engineers, I decided to apply. That took me to the first remote sensing classes I had taken. That’s how I started learning that you can study the ocean from space. I had no idea that could be done. That program planted the curiosity about satellite oceanography and gave me the tools to go into graduate school in that field.
      How did you first gain exposure to oceanography and diving?
      I am from Puerto Rico and grew up all the way in the mountains. There wasn’t much of a connection to the ocean for me, only a few trips to the beach. I remember my dad taking me to a small beach called La Poza del Obispo in Arecibo and he held me while I used a small snorkel underwater. That was the first connection I had with marine life. I started diving sometime when I was about 18 years old, and I remember saying, “This is the most amazing thing ever,” and that’s when I decided I needed to pursue a life in that field.
      What interested you in phytoplankton as a specialty?
      Initially, I was curious about harmful algal blooms in the West Florida Shelf, which I studied when I moved to Florida to do my grad studies. I learned that the blooms can produce neurotoxins, and those can affect humans in different ways. So, if you have asthma, they can make you feel worse. I remember developing asthma that night after going to the beach and having go to the ER. I didn’t see the connection at the time until I learned about these events and how toxins can get in the air. It felt like something important that I could study to help people or do something that’s meaningful. It’s amazing that we can see something so tiny from space and study them.
      How does your identity, being a Latina, show up at NASA?
      This is kind of a dream come true. It is so amazing to be able to fulfill that dream. I came from a small town. There appeared to me no chances to come all the way to NASA. So, having this opportunity is exciting, and bringing it back to my community and saying, “Hey, anyone can actually do it.” One of the advantages is that you speak a different language, so you can make connections with different countries.
      What do you look forward to in the future? What are some of your goals?
       I would love to keep growing in my field. As a mother, sometimes is hard to visualize where I want to be in the future, so I find it best to focus on the present. My priority right now is my family, however in the future I would love to engage in a job in which I can transfer my knowledge and love to the oceans to future generations; and be more involved in the community.
      When you think of your village and growing up in Puerto Rico, what is a memory you have that makes you smile?
      I still remember going to collect coffee with my mom and dad. My dad had a small basket for me that I would fill with only the most beautiful red grains of coffee. I was around 5 years old, and I remember the toys that my mom would take, and they’d settle me under the coffee trees. I still go to Puerto Rico, and I am fascinated when I see the coffee trees; it reminds me of my childhood.
      What advice would you give to other little girls who might not think NASA is a dream they can achieve?
      I was the little girl with the dream of being a scientist at NASA, and then I was a teenager, an adult, and a mother, all with the same dream! It took me several decades and many life stages to get here. Many times, along my path, I thought of giving up. Others, I thought I was completely off track and I would never fulfill my dream. I had limited resources while growing up. There were no fancy swimming or piano classes, but I had amazing teachers and mentors who guided me along the way. So, no matter how young or old you are, you can still fulfill that dream. The key to success is to know where you want to go, surround yourself with people that believe in you, and if you fall, just shake it off and try again!
      By Alexa Figueroa
      NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
      Conversations With Goddard is a collection of Q&A profiles highlighting the breadth and depth of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center’s talented and diverse workforce. The Conversations have been published twice a month on average since May 2011. Read past editions on Goddard’s “Our People” webpage.
      Share
      Details
      Last Updated Nov 12, 2024 EditorRob GarnerContactRob Garnerrob.garner@nasa.govLocationGoddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
      People of Goddard Earth Goddard Space Flight Center PACE (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, Ocean Ecosystem) People of NASA SeaWiFS (Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor) View the full article
    • By NASA
      Teams with NASA and Lockheed Martin prepare to conduct testing on NASA’s Orion spacecraft on Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024, in the altitude chamber inside the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Lockheed Martin/David Wellendorf Teams lifted NASA’s Orion spacecraft for the Artemis II test flight out of the Final Assembly and System Testing cell and moved it to the altitude chamber to complete further testing on Nov. 6 inside the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
      Engineers returned the spacecraft to the altitude chamber, which simulates deep space vacuum conditions, to complete the remaining test requirements and provide additional data to augment data gained during testing earlier this summer.
      The Artemis II test flight will be NASA’s first mission with crew under the Artemis campaign, sending NASA astronauts Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Reid Wiseman, as well as CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, on a 10-day journey around the Moon and back.
      Image credit: Lockheed Martin/David Wellendorf
      View the full article
    • By NASA
      6 min read
      Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
      The NISAR mission will help researchers get a better understanding of how Earth’s surface changes over time, including in the lead-up to volcanic eruptions like the one pictured, at Mount Redoubt in southern Alaska in April 2009.R.G. McGimsey/AVO/USGS Data from NISAR will improve our understanding of such phenomena as earthquakes, volcanoes, and landslides, as well as damage to infrastructure.
      We don’t always notice it, but much of Earth’s surface is in constant motion. Scientists have used satellites and ground-based instruments to track land movement associated with volcanoes, earthquakes, landslides, and other phenomena. But a new satellite from NASA and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) aims to improve what we know and, potentially, help us prepare for and recover from natural and human-caused disasters.
      The NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) mission will measure the motion of nearly all of the planet’s land and ice-covered surfaces twice every 12 days. The pace of NISAR’s data collection will give researchers a fuller picture of how Earth’s surface changes over time. “This kind of regular observation allows us to look at how Earth’s surface moves across nearly the entire planet,” said Cathleen Jones, NISAR applications lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
      Together with complementary measurements from other satellites and instruments, NISAR’s data will provide a more complete picture of how Earth’s surface moves horizontally and vertically. The information will be crucial to better understanding everything from the mechanics of Earth’s crust to which parts of the world are prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. It could even help resolve whether sections of a levee are damaged or if a hillside is starting to move in a landslide.
      The NISAR mission will measure the motion of Earth’s surface — data that can be used to  monitor critical infrastructure such as airport runways, dams, and levees. NASA/JPL-Caltech What Lies Beneath
      Targeting an early 2025 launch from India, the mission will be able to detect surface motions down to fractions of an inch. In addition to monitoring changes to Earth’s surface, the satellite will be able to track the motion of ice sheets, glaciers, and sea ice, and map changes to vegetation.
      The source of that remarkable detail is a pair of radar instruments that operate at long wavelengths: an L-band system built by JPL and an S-band system built by ISRO. The NISAR satellite is the first to carry both. Each instrument can collect measurements day and night and see through clouds that can obstruct the view of optical instruments. The L-band instrument will also be able to penetrate dense vegetation to measure ground motion. This capability will be especially useful in areas surrounding volcanoes or faults that are obscured by vegetation.
      “The NISAR satellite won’t tell us when earthquakes will happen. Instead, it will help us better understand which areas of the world are most susceptible to significant earthquakes,” said Mark Simons, the U.S. solid Earth science lead for the mission at Caltech in Pasadena, California.
      Data from the satellite will give researchers insight into which parts of a fault slowly move without producing earthquakes and which sections are locked together and might suddenly slip. In relatively well-monitored areas like California, researchers can use NISAR to focus on specific regions that could produce an earthquake. But in parts of the world that aren’t as well monitored, NISAR measurements could reveal new earthquake-prone areas. And when earthquakes do occur, data from the satellite will help researchers understand what happened on the faults that ruptured.
      “From the ISRO perspective, we are particularly interested in the Himalayan plate boundary,” said Sreejith K M, the ISRO solid Earth science lead for NISAR at the Space Applications Center in Ahmedabad, India. “The area has produced great magnitude earthquakes in the past, and NISAR will give us unprecedented information on the seismic hazards of the Himalaya.”
      Surface motion is also important for volcano researchers, who need data collected regularly over time to detect land movements that may be precursors to an eruption. As magma shifts below Earth’s surface, the land can bulge or sink. The NISAR satellite will help provide a fuller picture for why a volcano deforms and whether that movement signals an eruption.
      Finding Normal
      When it comes to infrastructure such as levees, aqueducts, and dams, NISAR’s ability to provide continuous measurements over years will help to establish the usual state of the structures and surrounding land. Then, if something changes, resource managers may be able to pinpoint specific areas to examine. “Instead of going out and surveying an entire aqueduct every five years, you can target your surveys to problem areas,” said Jones.
      The data could be equally valuable for showing that a dam hasn’t changed after a disaster like an earthquake. For instance, if a large earthquake struck San Francisco, liquefaction — where loosely packed or waterlogged sediment loses its stability after severe ground shaking — could pose a problem for dams and levees along the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
      “There’s over a thousand miles of levees,” said Jones. “You’d need an army to go out and look at them all.” The NISAR mission would help authorities survey them from space and identify damaged areas. “Then you can save your time and only go out to inspect areas that have changed. That could save a lot of money on repairs after a disaster.”
      More About NISAR
      The NISAR mission is an equal collaboration between NASA and ISRO and marks the first time the two agencies have cooperated on hardware development for an Earth-observing mission. Managed for the agency by Caltech, JPL leads the U.S. component of the project and is providing the mission’s L-band SAR. NASA is also providing the radar reflector antenna, the deployable boom, a high-rate communication subsystem for science data, GPS receivers, a solid-state recorder, and payload data subsystem. The U R Rao Satellite Centre in Bengaluru, India, which leads the ISRO component of the mission, is providing the spacecraft bus, the launch vehicle, and associated launch services and satellite mission operations. The ISRO Space Applications Centre in Ahmedabad is providing the S-band SAR electronics.
      To learn more about NISAR, visit:
      https://nisar.jpl.nasa.gov
      News Media Contacts
      Jane J. Lee / Andrew Wang
      Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
      818-354-0307 / 626-379-6874
      jane.j.lee@jpl.nasa.gov / andrew.wang@jpl.nasa.gov
      2024-155
      Share
      Details
      Last Updated Nov 08, 2024 Related Terms
      NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) Earth Science Earthquakes Jet Propulsion Laboratory Natural Disasters Volcanoes Explore More
      2 min read Hurricane Helene’s Gravity Waves Revealed by NASA’s AWE
      On Sept. 26, 2024, Hurricane Helene slammed into the Gulf Coast of Florida, inducing storm…
      Article 22 hours ago 3 min read Integrating Relevant Science Investigations into Migrant Children Education
      For three weeks in August, over 100 migrant children (ages 3-15) got to engage in…
      Article 2 days ago 5 min read NASA, Bhutan Conclude Five Years of Teamwork on STEM, Sustainability
      Article 4 days ago Keep Exploring Discover Related Topics
      Missions
      Humans in Space
      Climate Change
      Solar System
      View the full article
    • By European Space Agency
      This compilation of images, captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission, showcases the characteristic hues of autumn in different European countries.
      View the full article
    • By NASA
      NASA/Don Pettit Earth’s city lights streak by in this long-exposure photo taken by NASA astronaut Don Pettit on Oct. 24, 2024. The green glow of Earth’s atmosphere is also visible on the horizon.
      Since the station became operational in November 2000, crew members have produced hundreds of thousands of images like this one through Crew Earth Observations. Their photographs of Earth record how the planet changes over time due to human activity and natural events, allowing scientists to monitor disasters and direct response on the ground and study phenomena.
      Image credit: NASA/Don Pettit
      View the full article
  • Check out these Videos

×
×
  • Create New...