NASA, Rocket Lab Launch First Pair of Storm-Observing CubeSats 

[caption id="attachment_460297" align="aligncenter" width="610"] Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket lifts off from Launch Complex 1 at Māhia, New Zealand, carrying two TROPICS CubeSats for NASA. (Credit: Rocket Lab)[/caption]

Two NASA CubeSats designed to study tropical cyclones, including hurricanes and typhoons, are in orbit after successfully launching on May 8, 2023. 

The first pair of the agency’s TROPICS (Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats) lifted off aboard an Electron rocket from Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex 1 Pad B in Māhia, New Zealand.  

TROPICS is a constellation of four identical CubeSats designed to observe tropical cyclones in a unique, inclined low Earth orbit over Earth’s tropics, an orbit that allows them to travel over any given storm about once an hour. Current weather tracking satellites have a timing of about once every six hours.