NASA CubeSat to Test Miniaturized Weather Satellite Technology

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Each year, severe weather in the U.S.

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causes $5 billion in damage and losses

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up to 10,000 lives lost globally.

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NASA's Earth Science Technology Office funded a CubeSat project

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that could validate a new technology approach to improve weather forecasting.

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Our ESTO funded project is called MiRaTA.

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It stands for the Microwave Radiometer Technology

Acceleration mission.

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It has two really interesting Earth sensors

on it.

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One of them is going to be taking maps of

temperature and water vapor and cloud ice on Earth.

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It’s called a microwave radiometer.

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...and one of them is a GPS radio occultation

receiver.

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It uses signals from GPS satellites.

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The signal bends as it goes through the atmosphere,

and we can measure that with the receiver.

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...so that we can constantly monitor the Earth's

weather systems.

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... will go into our forecasting systems,

and help us predict the tracks better;

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help us to assess how much damage is expected,

and plan emergency resources better.

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You know, just generally contribute to advanced

warning and responsiveness to weather systems.

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Earth observations are really important.

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Obviously we are here on earth, and its really

important that we take good care of earth,

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and we most importantly take good care of

the people on earth, and

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understanding weather systems lets us do that.