NASA chose Rocket Lab USA Inc. Long Beach, California, to provide launch services for the agency’s PREFIRE (Polar Radiation Energy in Far Infrared Experiment) mission, which aims to give researchers a more accurate picture of the energy entering and leaving the Earth.

The PREFIRE mission will help bridge a gap in our understanding of how much Earth’s heat is lost into space, particularly from the North Pole and Antarctica. Analysis of PREFIRE measurements will inform climate and ice models, providing better estimates of how global warming will affect sea ice loss, ice sheet melting, and sea level rise. Improvements in climate models could eventually help provide more accurate estimates of storm strength and frequency, as well as coastal erosion and flood impact.

The mission consists of two 6U CubeSats with a baseline mission of 10 months and was jointly developed by NASA and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California manages the agency’s Science Mission Directorate and provides the tools. Blue Canyon Technologies is building the CubeSats and the University of Wisconsin-Madison will process the data collected by the vehicles. The research team includes members from JPL and the universities of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Colorado.

NASA Launch Services, based at Kennedy Space Center in Florida in partnership with NASA’s Earth Systems Science Pathfinder Office, announces the launch of service under the agency’s VADR (Venture-class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare) service contract. Source