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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 * Origin: NCS BBS - Houma, LoUiSiAna (1:3828/7)