NASA, in collaboration with Rocket Lab, has scheduled the launch of the first of two PREFIRE (Polar Radiant Energy in the Far-InfraRed Experiment) missions no earlier than May 22, 2024 with the aim of studying the amount of heat that our planet absorbs and emits from its polar regions, including the Arctic and Antarctica. For the PREFIRE mission, two CubeSats will launch on two separate flights aboard the company’s Electron rockets from Launch Complex 1 in Māhia, New Zealand. Each launch will carry one satellite.
The role of the polar regions in the Earth’s energy balance
NASA’s PREFIRE mission will fill a gap in our understanding of how much Earth’s heat is lost to space from the polar regions. By capturing measurements at the poles that can only be collected from space, PREFIRE will allow researchers to systematically study the planet’s heat emissions in the far infrared, with wavelength resolution ten times finer than any previous sensor.
The Arctic and Antarctic regions help regulate Earth’s weather by radiating heat initially absorbed in the tropics back into space. However, for regions like the Arctic, the spectrum of the 60% of energy that escapes into space has not been systematically measured. Completing this picture is critical to understanding which parts of the polar environment are responsible for heat loss and why the Arctic has warmed more than 2.5 times faster than the rest of the planet. In addition to helping us understand how the poles serve as Earth’s thermostat, PREFIRE observations of this heat exchange can improve our understanding of the mechanisms of polar ice loss and issues related to sea level rise and ice loss marine.
The technology used in the PREFIRE mission
The instruments will fly on two identical CubeSats, one for each CubeSat, in asynchronous, quasi-polar orbits. NASA and the University of Wisconsin-Madison jointly developed the PREFIRE mission. The agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, located in Southern California, manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate and provided the spectrometers. Blue Canyon Technologies built the CubeSats, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison will process the collected data.
The launch, which Rocket Lab is calling “Ready, Aim, PREFIRE,” will be followed by a second launch of the CubeSat mission several weeks later. The second launch, which the company calls “PREFIRE and Ice,” will also take off from New Zealand on an Electron rocket. NASA’s Launch Services Program selected Rocket Lab to launch both spacecraft as part of the agency’s Venture-class Acquisition of Dedicated and Rideshare (VADR) contract.
For more updates on the launch, you can follow NASA’s Small Satellite Missions blog. To find out more about the PREFIRE mission, you can visit the official NASA website dedicated to the project.
