NASA’s Electron rocket lab has launched a pair of cubed satellites designed to monitor tropical storm development, 11 months after the first satellites in the constellation were lost due to the malfunction of another rocket. The Electron was launched from the company’s Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand at 9 PM EST on May 7th. Two measurements of time-dependent precipitation structure and storm intensity using the Constellation Small Satellites (TROPICS) cube satellites were deployed on the first stage of the rocket approximately 35 minutes later. Although departure was not confirmed until 20 minutes later via the ground station.

Electron placed 3U cube satellites in a 550-kilometer orbit with an inclination angle of 32 degrees. The impact stage, normally used in Electron launches to return orbit, performed the required tilt change for the payloads.

In about two weeks, the second Electron will launch two more TROPICS cube satellites. The four-satellite system will be able to monitor tropical storm development using a microwave radiometer that can collect temperature and water vapor profiles on each satellite. With four satellites, TROPICS will be able to provide hourly updates that can help monitor the formation of hurricanes and other tropical weather systems.

“We’re going to get data we’ve never had before, which is the ability to monitor storm formation and intensification by looking at microwave wavelengths of storms at hourly rates,” said TROPICS principal investigator William Blackwell. At MIT Lincoln Laboratory during a media interview on April 28. “We hope to improve our understanding of the underlying processes that drive storms and ultimately improve our ability to predict path and intensity.”

TROPICS originally consisted of six satellites. The first two satellites were launched on an Astra Rocket 3.3 in June 2022 as part of three launch contracts worth approximately $8 million, but were unable to reach orbit as the rocket’s upper stage ran out of kerosene and stopped prematurely.

Astra eventually retired Rocket 3.3, forcing NASA to find a new way to launch the other four satellites. The agency selected Rocket Lab to launch in November 2022 at two exclusive Electron launches from the company’s new Launch Complex 2 on Wallops Island, Virginia. NASA has awarded Rocket Lab a $12.99 million mission order, accepting the award under a Venture-class Dedicated and Vehicle Share Acquisition (VADR) contract.

On April 10, Rocket Lab announced that it will move two TROPICS launches from Virginia to New Zealand. “The schedule we may have launched the spacecraft from Virginia did not match the schedule required to get this spacecraft into orbit during storm season,” Rocket Lab’s CEO Peter Beck told the media. . He did not elaborate on the issues that caused the launches from Virginia to be out of schedule.

NASA officials said they were pleased with the change in launch locations. “For the most part, we don’t care about the launch location,” said Bradley Smith, director of launch services at NASA’s Space Operations Administration. “If the launch provider can meet their mission requirements, they’ll choose where they want to go.”

Beck said the change in launch locations did not result in additional costs for NASA. Ben Kim, a program manager in NASA’s Earth Sciences Division, said there is additional logistics and paperwork involved in getting the TROPICS satellites to New Zealand, but these are trivial. The TROPICS task manager on the launchpad “probably makes the situation worse because I forget the time difference in the middle of the night and call and text him.”

If the second launch is successful, NASA expects the four-satellite system to be operational at the start of the Atlantic hurricane season this summer. According to Blackwell, having four instead of the originally planned six “makes a difference,” and the repetition time is 10 to 15 minutes longer than the six. “We’re well ahead of our 60-minute requirement with just four satellites.”