Firefly Aerospace
The Investigation of Convective Updrafts (INCUS) is a NASA Earth science mission led by Colorado State University that will investigate the behavior of tropical storms in order to better represent these storms in weather and climate models. It consists of 3 SmallSats flying in tight coordination to study why convective storms, heavy precipitation, and clouds occur exactly when and where they form. Each satellite will have a high frequency precipitation radar that observes rapid changes in convective cloud depth and intensities. 1 of the 3 satellites also will carry a microwave radiometer to provide the spatial content of the larger scale weather observed by the radars. By flying so closely together, the satellites will use the slight differences in when they make observations to apply a novel time-differencing approach to estimate the vertical transport of convective mass.
Target orbit: Low Earth Orbit
Possible visibility from Bermuda, conditions permitting.
Face nw (305.1701966688032°) and sweep along the trajectory. Start scanning the sky about six minutes after liftoff.
Sweep order (approximate)
You are standing at the amber dot in the middle. The solid cyan arrow is where to aim your eyes — roughly where the rocket will appear highest in the sky.
Lighting note
At night, look for the faint glow of the exhaust plume rather than the rocket itself. Let your eyes adjust for several minutes before liftoff, and avoid looking at phone screens.
Bermuda weather
Checking conditions…
SpaceX
Visibility uncertainA batch of 29 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.
Rocket Lab
Possible visibilitySub-orbital launch under Rocket Lab’s Hypersonic Accelerator Suborbital Test Electron (HASTE) program, details TBD.