New experimental satellites destined for low-Earth orbit are expected to provide hurricane-prone areas with a revolutionary view and insight into potentially deadly storm systems.
The technology, which is still in the development stages, is called Investigation of Convective Updrafts or INCUS.
Spearheading the project are researchers from Colorado State University who have been awarded a US$177 million grant from NASA to develop the experimental technology with a projected launch date of mid-2026.
CSU is one of two sources from which the Cayman Islands National Weather Service garners its storm-tracking data each year when monitoring storms in the Atlantic hurricane basin.
The INCUS project seeks to build on two radar programmes which are currently being deployed by CSU. The first is a radiometer called Tempest-D which was developed as a cost-effective way of gathering wave frequency data from storms, and the second is RainCube which is used to sends radar signals through a storm to gather precipitation data.
“The sum of the two parts in INCUS will allow scientists for the first time to see 3D structure of storms and bring a new dimension to the dynamical understanding of Earth systems,” wrote CSU in a statement published on their website.
How it works
The two-year mission in space is expected to provide scientists with a top-down view of rain, hail and lightning-laden storms.
The satellite system consists of three units, each no bigger than a microwave, and travelling seconds apart one behind the other in a direct line. Initial renderings of the instruments show them travelling along a path just north of the equator.
According to CSU, each satellite will beam down a radar through a developing weather disturbance, enabling it to scan storms to determine the amount of water vapour rising and the type of precipitation that is developing.
“The greater the mass of water and air transported up, the larger the risk of extreme weather conditions,” wrote CSU “Yet the exact physics of this vertical transport of moisture, called convective mass flux, is a unicorn in weather and climate science.
“There have never been systematic measurements of such processes in real time because the miniaturization of instruments necessary to fly these combined sensors in a train of small satellites has not existed until now.”
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