Last Updated: Nov. 8, 2016
Editor: Sarah Ramsey
Tags:  CubeSats, CYGNSS (Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System),
Earth, Small Satellite Missions
Hurricanes
Nov. 10, 2016
RELEASE 16-106
NASA Set to Launch New Fleet of Hurricane-Tracking Small Satellites
Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System
The primary science goal of Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System
(CYGNSS) is to better understand how and why winds in hurricanes intensify.
CYGNSS is a unique satellite mission that consists of a constellation of
eight small satellites.
Credits: NASA
 
NASA is set to launch its first Earth science small satellite
constellation, which will help improve hurricane intensity, track, and
storm surge forecasts, on Dec. 12 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in
Florida.
 
The Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) hurricane mission
will measure previously unknown details crucial to accurately understanding
the formation and intensity of tropical cyclones and hurricanes.
 
"This is a first-of-its-kind mission," said Thomas Zurbuchen,
associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate at the
agency's headquarters in Washington. "As a constellation of eight
spacecraft, CYGNSS will do what a single craft can't in terms of measuring
surface wind speeds inside hurricanes and tropical cyclones at high
time-resolution, to improve our ability to understand and predict how these
deadly storms develop."
 
The CYGNSS mission is expected to lead to more accurate weather forecasts
of wind speeds and storm surges -- the walls of water that do the most
damage when hurricanes make landfall.
 
Utilizing the same GPS technology that allows drivers to navigate streets,
CYGNSS will use a constellation of eight microsatellite observatories to
measure the surface roughness of the world's oceans. Mission scientists
will use the data collected to calculate surface wind speeds, providing a
better picture of a storm's strength and intensity.
 
Unlike existing operational weather satellites, CYGNSS can penetrate the
heavy rain of a hurricane's eyewall to gather data about a storm's intense
inner core. The eyewall is the thick ring of thunderstorm clouds and rain
that surrounds the calm eye of a hurricane. The inner core region acts like
the engine of the storm by extracting energy from the warm surface water
via evaporation into the atmosphere. The latent heat contained in the water
vapor is then released into the atmosphere by condensation and
precipitation. The intense rain in eyewalls blocks the view of the inner
core by conventional satellites, however, preventing scientists from
gathering much information about this key region of a developing hurricane.
 
"Today, we can't see what's happening under the rain," said Chris
Ruf, professor in the University of Michigan's Department of Climate and
Space Sciences and Engineering and principal investigator for the CYGNSS
mission. "We can measure the wind outside of the storm cell with
present systems. But there's a gap in our knowledge of cyclone processes in
the critical eyewall region of the storm - a gap that will be filled by the
CYGNSS data. The models try to predict what is happening under the rain,
but they are much less accurate without continuous experimental
validation."
 
The CYGNSS small satellite observatories will continuously monitor surface
winds over the oceans across Earth's tropical hurricane-belt latitudes.
Each satellite is capable of capturing four wind measurements per second,
adding as much as 32 wind measurements per second for the entire
constellation.
 
CYGNSS is the first complete orbital mission competitively selected by
NASA's Earth Venture program. Earth Venture focuses on low-cost, rapidly
developed, science-driven missions to enhance our understanding of the
current state of Earth and its complex, dynamic system and enable continual
improvement in the prediction of future changes.
 
The Space Physics Research Laboratory at the University of Michigan College
of Engineering in Ann Arbor leads overall mission execution in partnership
with the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, and its
Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering department leads the science
investigation. The Earth Science Division of NASA's Science Mission
Directorate oversees the mission.
 
For more information about NASA's CYGNSS mission, visit:
 
http://www.nasa.gov/cygnss
 
-end-
 
 
Regards,
 
Roger

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