{"id":15524,"date":"2024-02-13T17:19:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-13T17:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/?p=15524"},"modified":"2024-02-15T19:17:22","modified_gmt":"2024-02-15T19:17:22","slug":"meet-nasas-twin-spacecraft-headed-to-the-ends-of-the-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/articles\/15524","title":{"rendered":"Meet NASA\u2019s Twin Spacecraft Headed to the Ends of the Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"<\/a>
Sunlight glints off patches of ice in the Chukchi Sea, a part of the Arctic Ocean. NASA\u2019s PREFIRE mission to Earth\u2019s polar regions will explore how a warming world will affect sea ice loss, ice sheet melt, and sea level rise. Credit: NASA\/Kathryn Hansen<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Launching in spring 2024, the two small satellites of the agency\u2019s PREFIRE mission will fill in missing data from Earth\u2019s polar regions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two new miniature NASA satellites will start crisscrossing Earth\u2019s atmosphere in a few months, detecting heat lost to space. Their observations from the planet\u2019s most bone-chilling regions will help predict how our ice, seas, and weather will change in the face of global warming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About the size of a shoebox, the cube satellites, or CubeSats, comprise a mission called PREFIRE, short for Polar Radiant Energy in the Far-InfraRed Experiment<\/a>. Equipped with technology proven at Mars, their objective is to reveal the full spectrum of heat loss from Earth\u2019s polar regions for the first time, making climate models more accurate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PREFIRE has been jointly developed by NASA and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, with team members from the universities of Michigan and Colorado.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mission starts with Earth\u2019s energy budget<\/a>. In a planetary balancing act, the amount of heat energy the planet receives from the Sun should ideally be offset by the amount it radiates out of the Earth system into space. The difference between incoming and outgoing energy determines Earth\u2019s temperature and shapes our climate.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

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The PREFIRE mission will send two CubeSats \u2013 depicted in an artist\u2019s concept orbiting Earth \u2013 into space to study how much heat the planet absorbs and emits from its polar regions. These measurements will inform climate and ice models. Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

<\/a>The PREFIRE mission will send two CubeSats \u2013 depicted in an artist\u2019s concept orbiting Earth \u2013 into space to study how much heat the planet absorbs and emits from its polar regions. These measurements will inform climate and ice models.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Polar regions play a key role in the process, acting like Earth\u2019s radiator fins. The stirring of air and water, through weather and ocean currents, moves heat energy received in the tropics toward the poles, where it is emitted as thermal infrared radiation \u2013 the same type of energy you feel from a heat lamp. Some 60% of that energy flows out to space in far-infrared wavelengths that have never been systematically measured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PREFIRE can close that gap. \u201cWe have the potential to discover some fundamental things about how our planet works,\u201d said Brian Drouin, scientist and deputy principal investigator for the mission at NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn climate projections, a lot of the uncertainty comes in from what we don\u2019t know about the North and South poles and how efficiently radiation is emitted into space,\u201d he said. \u201cThe importance of that radiation wasn\u2019t realized for much of the Space Age, but we know now and are aiming to measure it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Launching from New Zealand two weeks apart in May, each satellite will carry a thermal infrared spectrometer. The JPL-designed instruments include specially shaped mirrors and detectors for splitting and measuring infrared light. Similar technology is used by the Mars Climate Sounder<\/a> on NASA\u2019s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to explore the Red Planet\u2019s atmosphere and weather.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miniaturizing the instruments to fit on CubeSats was a challenge for the PREFIRE engineering team. They developed a scaled-down design optimized for the comparatively warm conditions of our own planet. Weighing less than 6 pounds (3 kilograms), the instruments make readings using a device called a thermocouple, similar to the sensors found in many household thermostats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ground Zero for Climate Change<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

To maximize coverage, the PREFIRE twins will orbit Earth along different paths, overlapping every few hours near the poles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the 1970s, the Arctic has warmed at least three times faster than anywhere else on Earth. Winter sea ice there has shrunk<\/a> by more than 15,900 square miles (41,200 square kilometers) per year, a loss of 2.6% per decade relative to the 1981-2010 average. A change is occurring on the opposite side of the planet, too: Antarctica\u2019s ice sheets are losing mass at an average rate of about 150 billion tons<\/a> per year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The implications of these changes are far reaching. Fluctuations in sea ice shape polar ecosystems and influence the temperature as well as circulation of the ocean. Meltwater from mile-thick ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica is responsible for about one-third of the rise in global mean sea level<\/a> since 1993.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you change the polar regions, you also fundamentally change the weather around the world,\u201d said Tristan L\u2019Ecuyer, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the mission\u2019s principal investigator. \u201cExtreme storms, flooding, coastal erosion \u2013 all of these things are influenced by what\u2019s going on in the Arctic and Antarctic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To understand and project such changes, scientists use climate models that take into account many physical processes. Running the models multiple times (each time under slightly different conditions and assumptions) results in an ensemble of climate projections. Assumptions about uncertain parameters, such as how efficiently the poles emit thermal radiation, can significantly impact the projections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PREFIRE will supply new data on a range of climate variables, including atmospheric temperature, surface properties, water vapor, and clouds. Ultimately, more information will yield a more accurate vision of a world in flux, said L\u2019Ecuyer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs our climate models converge, we\u2019ll start to really understand what the future\u2019s going to look like in the Arctic and Antarctic,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This story was first published by Jet Propulsion Laboratory and NASA<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

News Media Contact<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Jane J. Lee \/ Andrew Wang
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-0307 \/ 626-379-6874
jane.j.lee@jpl.nasa.gov<\/a> \/ andrew.wang@jpl.nasa.gov<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Launching in spring 2024, the two small satellites of the agency\u2019s PREFIRE mission will fill in missing data from Earth\u2019s polar regions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":15529,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,3],"tags":[14,31],"class_list":["post-15524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-stories","category-news-articles","tag-cimss","tag-ssec"],"acf":{"guest_author":[{"first_name":"Sally","last_name":"Younger","link":"https:\/\/www.jpl.nasa.gov\/news\/meet-nasas-twin-spacecraft-headed-to-the-ends-of-the-earth"}],"include_for_media_link":"no","sub_title":"","short_title":"Meet NASA\u2019s Twin Spacecraft Headed to the Ends of the Earth","ssec_home_page_carousel_image":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2024\/02\/PREFIRE_Cubesats_Illustration_Web_Banner_Credit_NASA_JPL-Caltech.jpg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15524"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15534,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15524\/revisions\/15534"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}