Developer: MIT Lincoln Laboratory
Co-developer: NASA Blue Canyon Technologies
The TROPICS Pathfinder Satellite measures atmospheric temperature, water vapor, and precipitation in 12 microwave channels spanning 90–205 GHz, while being approximately 50x smaller than current weather-sensing systems. Its size drastically reduces costs for developing and launching high-performance satellites. Improving the forecasting and tracking of severe weather systems is vital because of their serious environmental and societal impacts. Historically, large and extremely expensive satellites have been needed to collect measurements of severe weather indicators. The TROPICS Pathfinder Satellite is 50x smaller and costs one-100th of current weather-sensing systems while collecting similar measurements. It can provide rapid-revisit data collection over a far wider area than is currently covered by a few big satellites. Constellations of these miniature units, which have excellent image resolution and radiometric sensitivity, can cost-effectively supply NOAA data to create weather-prediction models more cheaply, rapidly, and accurately. The TROPICS Pathfinder Satellite is the breakthrough that could revolutionize atmospheric weather sensing and the construction and launch of future satellites.
