Tuesday night (June 4) saw the launch of the second cubesat by Rocket Lab for NASA’s PREFIRE climate change mission.
At 11:15 p.m. EDT (03:15 GMT and 3:15 p.m. local New Zealand time on June 5), an Electron rocket topped with the tiny satellite took off from Rocket Lab’s New Zealand facility on Tuesday.
This mission was launched for the second time tonight. The initial attempt on Friday, May 31, was scrubbed due to a “out-of-family sensor reading.”
The acronym PREFIRE stands for “Polar Radiant Energy in the Far-Infrared Experiment.” The mission’s name implies that it will investigate heat loss from Earth’s polar regions, collecting data that should aid scientists in their understanding of our planet’s warming.
The Space Rocket Lab’s mission description, “far-infrared radiation is emitted as a lot of the heat radiated from the Arctic and Antarctica, but there is currently no detailed measurement of this type of energy.”
“The water vapour content of the atmosphere, along with the presence, structure and composition of clouds, influences the amount of far-infrared radiation that escapes into space from Earth’s poles,” the business stated. “Data collected from PREFIRE will give researchers information on where and when far-infrared energy radiates from the Arctic and Antarctic environments into space.”
PREFIRE will use two cubesats the size of shoeboxes to gather this data. On May 25, Rocket Lab launched the first of the satellites into a circular orbit above Earth that is 326 miles (525 km) high.
The second PREFIRE craft was safely launched into a same orbit with a little variation in altitude. If all goes as planned, the two will cross paths in the vicinity of the planet’s poles every few hours.
This second mission, Rocket Lab’s 49th orbital launch to date, was dubbed “PREFIRE and Ice.” Launched on May 25, the business called it “Ready, Aim, PREFIRE.”
Rocket Lab is attempting to make the first stage of the 59-foot-tall (18-meter-tall) Electron reusable. During some of its prior launches, the business has successfully recovered boosters from the ocean, but this was not the case for “Ready, Aim, PREFIRE” or “PREFIRE and Ice.”
