Firefly Alpha Block 2 | INCUS

Mission

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

Launch details

Vehicle

Firefly Alpha Block 2

Pad

Launch Area 0 A, Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia, USA, USA

Pad coordinates

37.8337, -75.4881

Mission type

Low Earth Orbit

Launch window

09:00 PM → 09:00 PM

Lighting at NET

Night