Author: Jamie Groh

Launch Date Set for NASA’s PREFIRE Mission to Study Polar Energy Loss

The PREFIRE (Polar Radiant Energy in the Far-InfraRed Experiment) mission will send two CubeSats – shown as an artist’s concept against an image of Earth from orbit – into space to study how much heat the planet absorbs and emits from its polar regions, including the Arctic and Antarctica. Photo credit:NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA and Rocket Lab are targeting no earlier than Wednesday, May 22, 2024, for the first of two launches of the agency’s PREFIRE (Polar Radiant Energy in the Far-InfraRed Experiment) mission to study heat loss to space in Earth’s polar regions. For the PREFIRE mission, two CubeSats will launch on two different flights aboard the company’s Electron rockets from Launch Complex 1 in Māhia, New Zealand. Each launch will carry one satellite.   

NASA’s PREFIRE mission will fill a gap in our understanding of how much of Earth’s heat is lost to space from the polar regions. By capturing measurements over the poles that can only be gathered from space, PREFIRE will enable researchers to systematically study the planet’s heat emissions in the far-infrared – with ten times finer wavelength resolution than any previous sensor.  

The Arctic and Antarctic help regulate Earth’s climate by radiating heat initially absorbed at the tropics back into space. But for regions like the Arctic, the spectrum of 60% of the energy escaping to space hasn’t been systematically measured. Filling in this picture is important for understanding which parts of the polar environment are responsible for heat loss and why the Arctic has warmed more than 2.5 times faster than the rest of the planet. In addition to helping us understand how the poles serve as Earth’s thermostat, PREFIRE observations of this heat exchange can improve our understanding of the mechanisms of polar ice loss and related questions of sea level rise and sea ice loss.  

The instruments will fly on two identical CubeSats – one instrument per CubeSat – in asynchronous, near-polar orbits. 

NASA and the University of Wisconsin-Madison jointly developed the PREFIRE mission. The agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, located in Southern California, manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate and provided the spectrometers. Blue Canyon Technologies built the CubeSats, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison will process the collected data. 

The launch, which Rocket Lab named “Ready, Aim, PREFIRE,” will be followed by a second CubeSat mission launch several weeks later.. The second launch, which the company calls “PREFIRE and Ice,” will also lift off from New Zealand on an Electron rocket. NASA’s Launch Services Program selected Rocket Lab to launch both spacecraft as part of the agency’s VADR (Venture-class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare) contract.  

Follow launch updates on NASA’s Small Satellite Missions blog.

To learn more about the PREFIRE mission, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/prefire/  

NASA Set to Launch Four CubeSats to Space Station

This photograph shows two women working on a small spacecraft.
NASA engineers Julie Cox and Kate Gasaway install a solar panel on the BurstCube spacecraft in this image. The work was conducted in the CubeSat Lab at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Photo credit: NASA/Sophia Roberts

NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative is sending a group of four small satellites, called CubeSats, to the International Space Station as ELaNa 51 (Educational Launch of Nanosatellites). These small payloads have been developed by NASA and universities and will be deployed from low Earth orbit. 

Once circling Earth, the satellites will help demonstrate and mature technologies meant to improve solar power generation, detect gamma ray bursts, determine crop water usage, and measure root-zone soil and snowpack moisture levels. 

The suite of satellites will hitch a ride aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft set to deliver additional science, crew supplies, and hardware for the company’s 30th commercial resupply services mission for NASA. Liftoff is targeted for 4:55 p.m. EDT Thursday, March 21, from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. 

First Cornhusker State CubeSat 

The first CubeSat from Nebraska is the Big Red Sat-1, which aims to investigate and improve the power production ability of solar cells. It is built by a team of middle and high school students mentored by University of Nebraska-Lincoln undergraduate engineering students. 

The satellite measuring 1U, or one unit, (about four inches cubed), will test out Perovskite cells, a new type of solar cell designed to enhance power production with and without direct exposure to sunlight. The team will compare the power production to that of typical cells, called gallium arsenide solar cells, also flying on the CubeSat. 

Detecting Gamma Ray Bursts 

BurstCube is a NASA-developed 6U CubeSat designed to search the sky for brief flashes of high-energy light such as gamma-ray bursts, solar flares, and other hard X-ray transients. 

Long and short gamma ray bursts are stellar remnants that can be the result of some of the universe’s most powerful explosions like the collapse or collision of massive stars, or when a neutron star collides with a black hole. BurstCube will use a new kind of compact, low-power silicon photomultiplier array to detect the elusive bursts of light. 

With the ability to detect these brief flashes from space, BurstCube can help alert other observatories to witness changes in the universe as they happen. Astronomers can also benefit from the information because these bursts are important sources for gravitational wave discoveries. 

Rooting Out Earth Water Sources from Space 

The SigNals of Opportunity P-band Investigation, or SNoOPI, is a technology demonstration CubeSat designed to improve the detection of moisture levels on a global scale of underground root-zone and within snowpacks. 

Root zone soil moisture and snow water equivalent play critical roles in the hydrologic cycle, impacting agricultural food production, water management, and weather phenomena. When scientists understand the amount of water in the soil, crop growth can be accurately forecasted, and irrigation can become more efficient. 

The 6U CubeSat is collaboratively developed by NASA, Purdue University in Indiana, Mississippi State University, and the United States Department of Agriculture.  

The fourth in the suite of small satellites, the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s HyTI (Hyperspectral Thermal Imager) is also a 6U CubeSat designed to study water sources. 

Developed in partnership with NASA to map irrigated and rainfed cropland, HyTI is a pathfinder demonstration that packs the Hyperspectral Imager Instrument, temporal resolution thermal infrared imager focal plane technology, and high-performance onboard computing to help better understand crop water use and water productivity of major world crops. 

With these tools, HyTI can help develop a more detailed understanding of the movement, distribution, and availability of water and its variability over time and space, an important contribution to global food and water security issues.  

These payloads were selected through NASA’s CSLI, which provides U.S. educational institutions, nonprofits with an education/outreach component, informal educational institutions (museums and science centers), and NASA centers with access to space at a low cost. 

Once the CubeSat selections are made, NASA’s Launch Services Program works to pair them with a launch that is best suited to carry them as auxiliary payloads. 

For more information about NASA’s CSLI, visit: 

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/heo/home/CubeSats_initiative