Results already from Māhia mission

This image shows the evolution of Hurricane Adrian between 8.31am local time on June 28, and 4.18pm local time on June 29. Data for the animation were acquired by the TROPICS mission, Nasa’s newest constellation of storm-watching satellites. Nasa Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using data provided by the TROPICS team.

A space-based storm-chasing mission launched from Māhia two months ago is already helping Nasa scientists and weather forecasters better understand hurricanes.

Nasa’s TROPICS mission is a constellation of four identical CubeSats designed to observe tropical cyclones. The cost-effective, milk-carton-sized satellites were launched in May by Rocket Lab.

“As communities throughout the world are experiencing the growing impacts of increased extreme weather, it’s never been more important to get timely data to those who need it most to save livelihoods and lives,” Nasa administrator Bill Nelson said.

“TROPICS will deliver vital information for forecasters, helping us all better prepare for hurricanes and tropical storms.”

In late June, Nasa’s TROPICS mission acquired data for images of the first named storms of the Eastern Pacific hurricane season. Hurricane Adrian developed near the west coast of Mexico but steered away from land. The animation and stills show the evolution of the storm’s clouds from the morning of June 28 to the afternoon of June 29.

Nearby, Beatriz was developing into a tropical storm, visible in these images as the less-organised clouds closer to the coast.

Each TROPICS CubeSat contains a microwave radiometer that collects data across 12 channels to detect temperatures, moisture, and precipitation around and within a storm.

The images provided show brightness temperature; that is, the intensity of radiation detectable at that channel frequency moving upward from the cloud layers and toward the satellites.

“Structural changes in brightness temperature can help tell us whether a storm is intensifying or weakening,” the mission’s deputy programme applications lead at Nasa’s Marshall Space Flight Center Patrick Duran, said.

“These structural changes are less apparent in natural-colour images, which primarily show the tops of clouds. And some features, such as the eye, often show up in microwave images before they are detected by infrared sensors on other satellites.”

Whereas the orbits of most science satellites only permit observations of a storm every six to 12 hours, the low-Earth orbit and multiple satellites of TROPICS can allow storm imaging about once an hour — a big advantage when trying to understand a rapidly evolving storm.

“The high-revisit observations from TROPICS show detailed structure in the inner eye and rain bands of tropical cyclones,” the mission’s principal investigator at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory William Blackwell, said.

“Rapidly updated data provided by TROPICS uniquely show the dynamic evolution of the storm structure and environmental conditions.”