NASA has introduced they’ve chosen Rocket Lab to launch their PREFIRE mission to check Earth’s local weather and the way the planet loses warmth to area.
PREFIRE (Polar Radiant Vitality within the Far-InfraRed Experiment) will include two 6U cubesats that will probably be launched again to again no sooner than Might 2024. The satellites will probably be launched from Launch Advanced 1 on the Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand and inserted right into a 525 km (326 miles) polar orbit that may take it over the Artic and Antarctic ice caps.
Two Electron launches, one essential local weather change mission for @NASA.
PREFIRE will examine Arctic warming to assist researchers combat in opposition to rising sea ranges and melting ice sheets.
We’re proud to assist this newest NASA mission with two Electron launches from LC-1 in mid… pic.twitter.com/23OTfkCPMT
— Rocket Lab (@RocketLab) August 14, 2023
These cubesats would be the seventh and eighth missions that Rocket Lab has launched for NASA, and because of the strict mission necessities, they’re the one devoted small satellite tv for pc launch firm able to fast back-to-back launches which can be wanted for this mission.
The PREFIRE cubesats, as soon as in orbit, will deploy two photo voltaic arrays every earlier than starting science observations. The cubesats will measure how a lot warmth is misplaced via the environment to area from the ice caps and assist predict future ice soften, which ends up in rising sea ranges and coastal erosion across the planet.
A render of the PREFIRE cubesats in orbit (Credit score NASA JPL)
The launch contract was awarded beneath NASA’s VADR (Enterprise-class Acquisition of Devoted and Rideshare) launch providers that are primarily based at NASA’s Kennedy Area Middle in Florida. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory will handle the mission and is offering the devices, whereas the College of Wisconsin-Madison will course of the information collected. The principle cubesats will probably be constructed by Blue Canyon Applied sciences.
Disclosure: Richard Angle just isn’t an RKLB shareholder.
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