Team members successfully sent commands to the first CubeSat at 1:48 a.m. EDT, May 8. Subsequently, they established communications with the second CubeSat at 6:31 a.m. EDT. Read the NASA release here.
For imagery of this mission, please check here.
Follow launch updates on this blog and stay connected with the mission on social media.
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Two TROPICS CubeSats successfully deployed from a Rocket Lab Electron rocket after launch.
The team is working toward signal acquisition from the pair of TROPICS CubeSats. NASA will continue to assess data from periodic pass opportunities. It is not unexpected for CubeSats to take some time to establish communications. We will provide confirmation when signal is acquired.
The second pair of TROPICS CubeSats is planned to launch aboard another Rocket Lab Electron rocket, named Coming To A Storm Near You, in about two weeks from Launch Complex 1 at Māhia, New Zealand.
Follow launch updates on this blog and stay connected with the mission on social media. This concludes our coverage of this launch.
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Rocket Lab confirms Electron has successfully deployed the two TROPICS satellites to orbit.
NASA’s TROPICS CubeSats are expected to have deployed from the Rocket Lab’s Electron kick stage. The two CubeSats will reach low-Earth orbit to begin their mission.
Each of the CubeSats was designed to last approximately two years, but analysis, lifetime testing of key parts, and on-orbit experiences with similar hardware could help the satellites surpass their design lifetime.
The second stage of Rocket Lab’s Electron has cut off and separated from the payload kick stage. Soon, the kick stage engine will ignite and burn for about three minutes before it cuts off.
The Electron rocket has successfully completed the battery hot swap, switching power between batteries. The next milestone is second stage separation in about three minutes.
Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket lifts off from Launch Complex 1 at Māhia, New Zealand at 9:00 p.m., carrying two TROPICS CubeSats for NASA.
A series of milestones will occur within several minutes after launch. The rocket will reach MaxQ, which is the speed at which the vehicle reaches its maximum dynamic pressure. Electron’s first stage main engines will cut off, followed by separation from the second stage. The payload fairing surrounding TROPICS will jettison.
TROPICS will launch aboard Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket, named Rocket Like A Hurricane, from Launch Complex 1 at Māhia, New Zealand. The Electron is an expendable, vertically launched, two-stage rocket that uses liquid oxygen and kerosene as propellants. Propellant loading has already begun for today’s launch and the rocket should launch in about five minutes.
Each Electron rocket is around 60 feet (18 m) tall, with an exterior made of a carbon fiber composite, that can carry payloads weighing up to about 700 pounds (320 kilograms). Each Electron rocket uses nine Rutherford sea-level engines on its first stage, and a single Rutherford vacuum engine on its second stage. These engines use an electric turbopump powered by batteries to deliver propellants/fuel to the engines. A payload fairing protects the spacecraft or satellite as the rocket climbs through the atmosphere. An extra stage, called a kick stage, powered by a single Curie engine, will circularize the orbits of the small satellites. Previous NASA missions that launched on an Electron rocket are the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE), as well as two Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNA) missions ELaNa 19 and 32.
Some of the launch team members are located within Rocket Lab’s private range control facilities at Launch Complex 1, located on the north Island of New Zealand. The bulk of the Electron operators, as well as NASA’s Launch Services Program team and spacecraft customer team will be on console at the Auckland Production Complex.
The team has just called out Go for Launch, and the Electron rocket should blast off in about 10 minutes.
Each TROPICS satellite is identical – a 3U CubeSat about the size of a loaf of bread that weighs about 12 pounds.
The TROPICS CubeSat payload is a spinning microwave radiometer with highly integrated, compact microwave receiver electronics.
TROPICS satellites measure microwave frequencies ranging from about 90 to 205 gigahertz, which can monitor the atmospheric emissions made by water vapor, oxygen, and clouds in the atmosphere.
TROPICS target altitude is approximately 342 miles (550 km), the pairs of CubeSats will have two slightly different low-Earth orbits, each at an angle about 30 degrees above the equator.
The TROPICS Pathfinder satellite, a proof-of-concept CubeSat that launched in June of 2021, has captured images of several tropical cyclones, such as Hurricane Ida over the United States, Cyclone Batsirai over Madagascar, and Super Typhoon Mindulle over eastern Japan. The pathfinder satellite also has provided the TROPICS research team an opportunity to fine tune the satellites’ software and operational procedures before the constellation launches. In addition, the pathfinder already has been calibrated and will serve as a calibration reference for the rest of the TROPICS constellation satellites. The TROPICS pathfinder helps the TROPICS CubeSats start producing useful data quickly.
TROPICS is one of NASA’s Earth venture-instrument missions. They are science-driven, competitively selected, low-cost endeavors that provide opportunity for investment in innovative Earth science to enhance our capability to better understand the current state of the Earth system and to enable continual improvement in the prediction of future changes.
The TROPICS team is led by Principal Investigator Dr. William Blackwell at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington and includes researchers from NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and several universities and commercial partners.
NASA selected Rocket Lab to provide the launch service for the TROPICS mission as part of the agency’s VADR (Venture-class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare) launch services contract in November 2022. NASA’s Launch Services Program at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida manages the launch service.
