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Penetrating hurricanes with 8 powerful new eyes in the sky

 
An Orbital ATK L-1011 Stargazer aircraft carrying a Pegasus XL Rocket with eight NASA Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System, or CYGNSS, spacecraft takes off from the Skid Strip at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. With the aircraft flying off shore, the Pegasus rocket will be released. Five seconds later, the solid propellant engine will ignite and boost the eight hurricane observatories to orbit. The eight CYGNSS satellites will make frequent and accurate measurements of ocean surface winds throughout the life cycle of tropical storms and hurricanes. [NASA photo]
An Orbital ATK L-1011 Stargazer aircraft carrying a Pegasus XL Rocket with eight NASA Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System, or CYGNSS, spacecraft takes off from the Skid Strip at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. With the aircraft flying off shore, the Pegasus rocket will be released. Five seconds later, the solid propellant engine will ignite and boost the eight hurricane observatories to orbit. The eight CYGNSS satellites will make frequent and accurate measurements of ocean surface winds throughout the life cycle of tropical storms and hurricanes. [NASA photo]
Published Dec. 20, 2016

Jettisoned from the belly of a plane, a Pegasus rocket blasted into space last week carrying eight hurricane-hunting microsatellites.

Known as the Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System, or CYGNSS, the fleet was designed by researchers at the University of Michigan to measure wind speeds near the sea surface. The data will improve how scientists predict and observe hurricanes and tropical storms brewing near the equator and the tropics, according to NASA, which sponsored the project.

Each of the suitcase-sized satellites weighs about 64 pounds and, after unfurling its wings, measures 5 feet across. Each uses less power than an incandescent light bulb.

The satellite constellation will orbit Earth about 300 miles above its surface, and will work in tandem with four GPS satellites already in orbit at an altitude of some 12,000 miles.

CYGNSS satellites will receive and reflect signals from the GPS system, making 32 wind measurements per second around the world. That's an improvement over weather satellites currently in orbit, which cannot observe wind speed as reliably because their microwave sensors get obscured by heavy rain.

CYGNSS can penetrate a hurricane's thick wall of water and peer into the eye of the storm, according to NASA.

The whole system costs about $157 million. The price is relatively cheap for a weather satellite; the highly advanced Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-R is part of a weather and solar activity monitoring program estimated to cost $11 billion.

CYGNSS was launched on Dec. 15 from an Orbital ATK Pegasus XL rocket that was carried aboard a plane that took off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

NASA's eight eyes in the sky are expected to forecast hurricanes for at least two years.