Name | TROPICS |
---|---|
Type | CubeSat |
Units or mass | 3U |
Organisation | MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) |
Institution | University |
Entity | Academic / Education |
Nation | US |
Manufacturer | AIVT by Blue Canyon |
Launch brokerer | Astra |
Oneliner |
Provide rapid-refresh microwave measurements over the tropics for weather prediction. |
Description |
Provide rapid-refresh microwave measurements (21 minutes for the baseline mission, 31 minutes for the threshold mission) over the tropics that can be used to observe the thermodynamics of the troposphere and precipitation structure for storm systems at the mesoscale and synoptic scale over the entire storm lifecycle. |
Sources | [1] [2] [3] [4] |
Photo Sources | [1] [2] [3] [4] |
Keywords | Steerable Solar Arrays |
Related Spacecraft
Name | Status | Launch | Orbit |
---|---|---|---|
TROPICS 1 Pathfinder (The Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats) | Operational (Comissioning complete according to official website as of 2021-07-23 and SmallSat 2022 paper) | 2021-06-30 | 525 km, 97.5 deg |
TROPICS 2 ( The Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats) | Launch failure | 2022-06-12 | Launch failure |
TROPICS 3 ( The Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats) | Launch failure | 2022-06-12 | Launch failure |
TROPICS 4 ( The Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats) | not launched | 2023-05-01 | not launched |
TROPICS 5 ( The Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats) | not launched | 2023-05-01 | not launched |
TROPICS 6 ( The Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats) | not launched | 2023-05-01 | not launched |
TROPICS 7 ( The Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats) | not launched | 2023-05-01 | not launched |
Last modified: 2022-12-29
Detailed TROPICS entry in the Database
Full Nanosats Database (much more data)