NASA launched satellites from a rocket launched from an airplane



    A needle is in an egg, an egg is in a duck, a duck is in a hare, a hare ... Well, you remember all this, right? At NASA, hardly a lot of employees have heard of Koshchey the Immortal, but the multistage principle of operation of various systems is often used there. So, the agency successfully launched a constellation of Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System ( CYGNSS ) satellites from a rocket, which, in turn, was launched from an aircraft.

    To launch the rocket, it was decided to use the carrier L-1011 Stargazer. This is a plane that took off to a height of 12 kilometers. Here the Orbital ATK Pegasus XL rocket was undocked from him. The next stage is the free fall of the rocket for five seconds, followed by the activation of the main engine, which carried the rocket with several satellites into Earth orbit.

    Fourteen minutes after launch, the Pegasus rocket sent its payload "to work". It happened at an altitude of 508 kilometers above the surface of the planet.


    The payload is a special delivery capsule on which the satellites are located. At a given height, they all undocked from the parent apparatus and began to perform functions.

    It is worth noting that the entire project cost the agency $ 157 million. NASA, despite the huge budget allocated by a special commission of Congress, could not complete the task. Therefore, the help of partners was required. They were the Michigan Institute and the Southwestern Research Institute from San Antonio.

    Initially, the launch of the aircraft with a rocket, capsule and satellites was scheduled for Monday . But I had to miss three days due to a problem with the hydraulic system of undocking the rocket, as well as for a more prosaic reason - on Monday the weather was inappropriate for launching.

    Eight CYGNSS satellites will now study the weather and climate conditions of several regions of our planet. For example, vehicles will help determine the intensity of hurricanes and tropical cyclones with an unprecedented accuracy to date. Satellites will monitor only the zone where tropical storms occur, this project does not provide for monitoring other areas.

    Each CYGNSS satellite is equipped with a Delay Doppler Mapping Instrument (Doppler frequency shift radar mapping), which includes a multichannel GPS receiver, a low gain zenith antenna and 2 high gain antenna antennas. These tools allow vehicles to detect and measure GPS satellite signals reflected from the surface of the oceans. In the event of a hurricane, radio signals can give an idea of ​​the wind speed in this region, as well as the configuration of the hurricane itself. The satellite system can carry out 32 measurements per second, providing an unprecedented accuracy of hurricane intensity estimation. Direct signals are also captured by satellites, and with their help the exact location of the vehicles in space is determined.

    Thanks to the new system, experts have the opportunity to analyze the development of hurricanes, while being away from them. “We can find out the wind speed from outside the storm thanks to our systems,” said climatologist Chris Ruf. Ruf is the scientific director of the CYGNSS mission. According to him, the knowledge base of climatologists about the hurricane is incomplete, and satellites will help eliminate this gap.

    Satellites task- not only the definition of wind power. The devices must study the mutual influence of the ocean surface, thermodynamics of atmospheric humidity, radiation and convective dynamics. This is necessary to determine the conditions for the formation of tropical hurricanes. The method, according to experts, will allow to determine in each particular case whether the hurricane will gain momentum or not. Scientists will be able to study the processes occurring next to the core of the storm, which is impossible when using direct observation. The processes occurring in the center, very quickly change, but they play a crucial role in the development of the hurricane.


    The project started in June 2012. Each microsatellite weighs 27.5 kilograms. The satellites are evenly distributed in one orbital plane, this allows them to return to the initial observation point every 6 hours. Hurricane observation will be conducted over two seasons.

    CYGNSS is the first NASA completed mission within the NASA Earth Venture program . This program includes projects that can be quickly developed, and the cost of which does not amount to billions of dollars. The main goal of the program is to study the current state of our planet, including the atmosphere and hydrosphere, so that a person learns to predict possible changes, such as climate.

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