Rocket Lab, a US-based space company, has successfully launched two NASA storm-monitoring satellites from New Zealand. The CubeSats were launched from Rocket Lab Complex 1 on the Mahia Peninsula on the archipelago nation’s east coast. The mission deployed two of four CubeSats that will create a constellation of tropical cyclone monitoring satellites for NASA known as TROPICS, meaning Time-Resolved Observations of precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats. The constellation will provide rapid-refresh microwave measurements over the tropics to better understand storm systems. The unique orbits over Earth’s tropics will allow the orbitals to traverse over any storm at an hour interval, which is better than the six hours of current weather tracking satellites. The second pair of CubeSats are scheduled to launch aboard Rocket Lab’s Coming To A Storm Near You rocket in about two weeks’ time, also from Mahia’s Complex 1.
