Earlier this month , NASAlauncheda constellation of small satellites that will transmute hurricane prognostication and enable new insights into storm formation and activity . Called theCyclone Global Navigation Satellite System(CYGNSS ) , eight ballistic capsule , each the size of a carry - on traveling bag , are fly over the tropic to measure and map ocean winds . Because of their elevation , heavy pelting and violent storm surges are no obstacles to the satellites , and when hurricanes form , the spacecraft will be able-bodied to peer through paries of water into the storm ’s heart and continue to collect data point — something no space - based system has ever done before .
“ CYGNSS is a shaft that will offer us 24/7 coverage of the tropical cyclone zone . It will improve our cognition of how hurricane grow so that we can better prepare and protect people in the path of each hurricane as it comes , ” Christine Bonniksen , CYGNSS program executive director with the Science Mission Directorate ’s Earth Science Division at NASA Headquarters , narrate mental_floss .
THE RAIN BARRIER HAS BLOCKED OUR VIEW
Over the past several decade , there has been a steady improvement in storm track forecasting — or where storms will hit — and the National Hurricane Center’serror rateis one-half of what it was 20 twelvemonth ago . The same can not be articulate for storm intensity prognostication — how inviolable these storm will be . “ If you look at the record for their intensity prognosis , there has been very , very little improvement in the last 20 years , ” allege Chris Ruf , the master investigator on the CYGNSS delegation and a scientist at the University of Michigan , Ann Arbor . One of the primary reason for this is that today ’s satellites are unable to evaluate what ’s go on in the internal core of hurricanes . “ This has been identified for many year as a chief lacking ingredient in the numerical forecasts that are used by the National Hurricane Center . They care they had data on the interior essence of the storms and they do n’t . ”
Storm cores have so far been heavy because current wind - observing spacecraft can not see through rain . This is because their on - dining table tool emit signal at an 8 - mm wavelength — about the same size as a large raindrop . When the signal encounter rainfall , they are simply scattered and absorbed . ( Hurricane path depend on environmental factorsoutsideof the storm , which is why this rain shroud has not been an impediment to predicting where tempest will hit . )
Additionally , it take about three daytime for current systems to collect datum to establish a mapping of global steer speeds and haste . This is a bad trouble if you ’re trying to cut through the speedy intensification of tropical storms and hurricanes , which can happen in a issue of hour . So until now , scientists have had to trust on so - call “ Hurricane Hunter ” aircraft to fly into the violent storm to perform malarky speed reconnaissance mission .
THE CYGNSS SOLUTION
CYGNSS changes all of this by using GPS artificial satellite signal , which were design to get through heavy rains . GPS operates at a 19 - cm wavelength — more than long enough to obviate rainfall interaction . When GPS satellite signal hit the sea , they reflect back into space and are receive by CYGNSS lookout station . Think about the way the Moon reflect on a placid lake : When the lake is unagitated , the Moon ’s range of a function is astute . When the wind blows , the piss roughens and the look-alike diffuses . CYGNSS relies on a similar principle , reading the clarity of the GPS signals to reveal the characteristics of the jazz . It measures the strength of the GPS signal as it scatters off the ocean surface to determine wind stop number .
Theeight CYGNSSobservatory space vehicle manoeuver equally in a single orbital plane around the Earth . Each satellite has a lading called a Delay Doppler Mapping Instrument , a GPS receiver open of pass over four unlike GPS signals simultaneously . Two antennas appear down at mull GPS signal and take measurement of the diffuse scattering , and from those derive the wind upper and activeness . Meanwhile , one antenna looks up and receives a unmediated GPS orbiter signal for geolocation . In essence , each 65 - Irish punt satellite is doing the work of four Hurricane Hunter airplanes . together with , CYGNSS is like a squadron of 32 such carpenter’s plane flying continuously over the tropic taking simultaneous measurements .
The system of rules give a total refresh of the full tropical nothingness statistical distribution mathematical function every seven hour , even under heavy hastiness . In a hurricane or tropic violent storm — including in areas with the gamey wind speeds and the most hefty upsurge — CYGNSS can straight off answer questions about the storm size , intensity , and the grasp of its warm wind . Moreover , because the satellite configuration has such heroic coverage of the Earth , it can collect massive amounts of data on the integral storm environment . There are three different data downlink point around the macrocosm , and the data can be downloaded from the satellites within the 60 minutes — an unprecedented timeframe .
HOW THE LAUNCH WENT DOWN
CYGNSS launched on the morning of December 15 , 2016 from Cape Canaveral with the help of a Pegasus arugula , an airwave launch system . The skyrocket was mount to the bottom of an L-1011 plane calledStargazerthat took off from a runway , just like any other plane you ’ve ever see . At 39,000 fundament above the Atlantic Ocean , the planereleasedthe Pegasus skyrocket , which ignited five seconds by and by and power its way into space . The fairings hatch aside and the deployment vehicle separated , and the eight minor satellites unloose themselves in dyad over 30 - moment intervals . Ten minutes after legal separation , their solar array deployed . They then act into berth in scope and began operation .
By 4:12 postmortem examination ET that same day , the CYGNSS team had successfully made contact with all eight satellites . " It is an amazingly rewarding impression to spend such an intense and focussed time working on CYGNSS and then , in a thing of just a few hour , have the entire constellation suddenly come to sprightliness , " Rufsaidin a abbreviated mission update . " I am mad ( and a little exhausted ) and really reckon forward to diving into the engineering science data in the come days , and then into the science data in the weeks to pursue . "
This is NASA ’s flagship Earth Venture – socio-economic class mission , which is a new NASA programme plan for low - price , high - technology suborbital ( think aircraft and balloons ) and orbital ( CYGNSS ) undertaking . Two previous missions of this stratum were aircraft design for atmospherical research and communications . This is the first spaceborne Earth Venture endeavour . Southwest Research Institute in Boulder , Colorado runs CYGNSS mission operations , and science operation are run from the University of Michigan . The primary $ 160 million mission will run for two eld — enough time to fill in blank place in the hurricane dataset , get a traction on how violent storm cores intensify , and hopefully refine the forecast models that lives depend on .
