NASA TROPICS Earth Weather CubeSats Launched in New Zealand | Rocket Lab

NASA TROPICS Earth Weather CubeSats Launched in New Zealand | Rocket Lab

Two NASA TROPICS CubeSats were successfully launched aboard Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket, named "Rocket Like A Hurricane," from Launch Complex 1 at Māhia, New Zealand at 9pm, May 7, 2023. 

TROPICS is a constellation of CubeSats that will help us better understand tropical storms and hurricanes around the globe. 

The NASA Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats (TROPICS) mission is a constellation of state-of-the-science observing platforms that will measure temperature and humidity soundings and precipitation with spatial resolution comparable to current operational passive microwave sounders but with unprecedented temporal resolution (median revisit time of 50 minutes). Each SmallSat hosts a 12-channel passive microwave spectrometer. The primary mission objective of TROPICS is to relate temperature, humidity, and precipitation structure to the evolution of tropical cyclone intensity.

Learn more at: https://tropics.ll.mit.edu/CMS/tropics/Mission-Overview

Rocket Lab's Electron is an expendable, vertically launched, two-stage rocket that uses liquid oxygen and kerosene as propellants. Each Electron rocket is around 60 feet (18 m) tall, with an exterior made of a carbon fiber composite, that can carry payloads weighing up to about 700 pounds (320 kilograms). Each Electron rocket uses nine Rutherford sea-level engines on its first stage, and a single Rutherford vacuum engine on its second stage. These engines use an electric turbopump powered by batteries to deliver propellants/fuel to the engines. 

A payload fairing protected the spacecraft or satellite as the rocket climbed through the atmosphere. An extra stage, called a kick stage, powered by a single Curie engine, circularized the orbits of the small satellites. Previous NASA missions that launched on an Electron rocket are the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE), as well as two Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNA) missions ELaNa 19 and 32.

Image Credit: Rocket Lab

Image Capture Date: May 7, 2023/ Images 7&8 on May 1, 2023

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