NASA has deployed the second Polar Radiant Energy in the Far-InfraRed Experiment, or PREFIRE, small satellite into space to study the impact of warming climate on Earth’s ice, seas and weather.
The second PREFIRE CubeSat has established communications with ground controllers after it lifted off aboard Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket from the company’s Launch Complex 1 in Mahia, New Zealand, NASA said Wednesday.
The satellite will join the first PREFIRE CubeSat launched on May 28. Blue Canyon Technologies built both spacecraft that will operate for 10 months in space to monitor ice shelves in the Arctic and Antarctica and gather data on heat emissions in the polar region.
“This mission will give us new measurements of the far-infrared wavelengths being emitted from Earth’s poles, which we can use to improve climate and weather models and help people around the world deal with the consequences of climate change,” said Brian Drouin, PREFIRE’s deputy principal investigator at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“Equipped with advanced infrared sensors that are more sensitive than any similar instrument, the PREFIRE CubeSats will help us better understand Earth’s polar regions and improve our climate models,” said Laurie Leshin, director at NASA JPL.