Components of NASA's
International Space Station-RapidScat instrument rest side by side in Kennedy
Space Center's Space Station Processing Facility. ISS-RapidScat will measure
Earth's ocean surface wind speed and direction from the station, data that will
be used for weather and marine forecasting.
Image Credit: NASA/Dimitri
Gerondidakis
Technicians at NASA’s Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California prepare NASA’s International Space
Station-RapidScat instrument for shipping to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Built
by JPL, ISS-RapidScat is slated to fly to the space station on the SpaceX-4
commercial cargo resupply in August.
Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Artist's rendering of
NASA's ISS-RapidScat instrument (inset), which will launch to the International
Space Station in 2014 to measure ocean surface wind speed and direction and help
improve weather forecasts, including hurricane monitoring.
Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Johnson
Space Center
A new NASA Earth-observing mission that will measure ocean winds from the
International Space Station has arrived at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in
Florida to begin final preparations for launch.
The International Space Station (ISS)-RapidScat scatterometer instrument
arrived May 12 after a cross-country trip from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
(JPL) in Pasadena, California. The instrument, built at JPL, now will undergo
final tests before being stowed aboard a SpaceX Dragon commercial cargo resupply
spacecraft. The Dragon will launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape
Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, no earlier than August.
ISS-RapidScat is NASA's first scientific Earth-observing instrument
specifically designed and developed to operate from the exterior of the space
station. It will measure near-surface ocean wind speed and direction in Earth’s
low and middle latitudes during its two-year mission. Its data will be used to
support weather and marine forecasting, including tracking storms and
hurricanes, as well as climate studies.
Winds over the ocean are a critical factor in determining regional weather
patterns and studying climate. High winds in severe storms also can inflict
major damage to shore populations and shipping. In some regions, ocean winds
drive warm surface ocean waters away from coastlines, causing nutrient-rich deep
water to rise to the surface, where they provide a major source of food for
coastal fisheries. Changes in ocean winds also help us monitor large-scale
changes in Earth’s climate variations, such as El Nino and La Nina.
Since 1999, NASA’s QuikScat satellite, along with satellites operated by
international partners, has provided ocean surface winds information for use by
the science and operational weather forecasting communities. In 2009, after 10
years of successful operations, QuikScat’s scatterometer instrument stopped
providing ocean wind data.
Scatterometers are radar sensors that bounce microwaves off the ocean surface
and measure the strength and direction of the echoes that return. The echoes are
scattered by the presence of wind-driven waves on the ocean surface.
ISS-RapidScat will help fill the gap left by the loss of these data and will
extend a 15-year ocean wind climate record.
ISS-RapidScat’s berth on the space station will put it in an orbit that is
unique from any other wind-measuring instrument currently in space. This orbit,
with an altitude that varies from 233 to 270 miles (375 to 435 kilometers), will
give scientists the first near-global direct observations of how ocean winds
vary over the course of the day, while adding extra eyes in the tropics and
midlatitudes to track the formation and movement of tropical cyclones. Its
560-mile-wide (900-kilometer) observation swath creates a map of winds over most
of the ocean between 51.6 degrees north and south of the equator every 48
hours.
ISS-RapidScat also will extend the continuity and usefulness of the scatterometer data record from the international constellation of ocean wind satellites. Currently, satellites in the constellation observe at different times of the day. Using the space station’s orbit, it will be possible for ISS-RapidScat to observe areas where the orbits of the other scatterometers in the constellation intersect at the same time. This capacity will allow scientists to correct for previously unknown relative errors between the different wind satellites and extend QuikScat’s 10-plus-year record to create a continuous record.
ISS-RapidScat also will extend the continuity and usefulness of the scatterometer data record from the international constellation of ocean wind satellites. Currently, satellites in the constellation observe at different times of the day. Using the space station’s orbit, it will be possible for ISS-RapidScat to observe areas where the orbits of the other scatterometers in the constellation intersect at the same time. This capacity will allow scientists to correct for previously unknown relative errors between the different wind satellites and extend QuikScat’s 10-plus-year record to create a continuous record.
ISS-RapidScat was developed in just a year-and-a-half, at roughly one-tenth
the cost of developing a traditional satellite mission. Its development approach
leverages space station capabilities and a combination of new industrial-grade
hardware and older inherited hardware used to develop and test QuikScat.
Additional cost savings are achieved by launching the instrument aboard a
scheduled space station cargo resupply mission.
After arriving at the space station, ISS-RapidScat will be installed on the
external payload facility on the Columbus module using the station’s robotic
arm. The arm will be controlled from the ground during installation.
ISS-RapidScat is an autonomous payload, requiring no interaction from station
crew members.
ISS-RapidScat is a partnership between JPL and the International Space
Station Program Office at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, with support
from the Earth Science Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in
Washington. Other mission partners include Kennedy; NASA’s Marshall Space Flight
Center in Huntsville, Alabama; the European Space Agency; and SpaceX. JPL is
managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
For more information about ISS-RapidScat, visit:
NASA monitors Earth’s vital signs from land, air and space with a fleet of
satellites and ambitious airborne and ground-based observation campaigns. NASA
develops new ways to observe and study Earth’s interconnected natural systems
with long-term data records and computer analysis tools to better see how our
planet is changing. The agency shares this unique knowledge with the global
community and works with institutions in the United States and around the world
that contribute to understanding and protecting our home planet.
ISS-RapidScat is the third of five NASA Earth science missions scheduled to
be launched this year, the most new NASA Earth-observing mission launches in the
same year in more than a decade. For more information about NASA's Earth science
activities in 2014, visit:
For more information about the International Space Station, visit:
NASA
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
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