The satellite was only presupposed to last two years. Nevertheless it’s still healthy at 20.
Canada’s Scisat is defying all lifetime expectations at an important time in human history, helping track the results of human-driven climate change. Throughout its long lifespan — its twentieth launch anniversary fell on Aug. 12 — Scisat has been providing consistent data to assist us heal Earth’s atmosphere, if we take the time to concentrate.
Three things have allowed the Canadian Space Agency to maintain operating the satellite for therefore long, program lead Marcus Dejmek told Space.com. First, the satellite needs little fuel to remain stable in its orbit. Data products are also consistently tweaked to trace more gases and chemical species, even with aging (if healthy) instruments. Finally, a fit satellite and constant updates together allow Scisat to deliver relevant products for its users, driving enough demand to maintain government budgets flowing.
“Also, I would not be doing my job if I didn’t say that a part of this answer was to have a dedicated group of staff that operate and understand the spacecraft hardware over time,” Dejmek emphasized. Identical to a automotive, satellites need servicing, but as an alternative of oil changes, the little Scisat receives software updates and hardware adjustments. “The people there are only great, they usually’re the frontline of the success.”
Scisat was developed and built for $63 million CAD in 2003 (roughly $97 million CAD or $71 million USD at today’s rates, although inflation differs between the 2 countries.) NASA flew it free of charge on Pegasus, which is an air-launched rocket now operated by Northrop Grumman. That flight was in exchange for Canada’s robotics contributions to the space shuttle program (the spacecraft was still running then) and the International Space Station, which pays for science and astronaut seats.
The small satellite — only concerning the area of a queen-sized bed — uses two scientific instruments to discover gases and particles in Earth’s atmosphere. Under scientific leadership from a coalition of Canadian universities, Scisat scrutinizes erosion of our planet’s protective ozone layer. This layer blocks harmful radiation from the sun before the rays reach Earth’s surface.
Amongst Scisat’s many achievements is finding pollutants within the atmosphere never spotted from space before. An example is the refrigerant gas HCFC-142b, which was used to interchange chlorofluorocarbons. Chlorofluorocarbons were a standard product in refrigerants, foams, aerosol sprays and solvents until the late Nineteen Eighties. The ozone-eroding substances are usually not as common today after the Montreal Protocol of 1987; nations that signed that protocol regularly phased such substances out.
Scisat also tracks atmospheric pollutants like soot and other particles from forest fires. This yr has been Canada’s worst on record for wildfires. A bit of the country corresponding to the dimensions of Greece has been burned already, Canadian federal data indicates: 51,000 square miles (13.3 million hectares). That size is sort of seven times Canada’s yearly average over the past decade.
Because it’s only August, the season just isn’t nearly over; this month, a raging wildfire within the Northwest Territories sparked evacuations of town of Yellowknife. One other set of Quebec wildfires in June created smoke so thick that Venus-like yellow skies glowed above Recent York City. The plume even carried across the ocean to Europe.
“It’s clarified that there needs to be a growing concern that more frequent and intense wildfires are eroding the ozone layer, they usually could subsequently ‘delay the ozone recovery in a warming world,'” Dejmak said of Scisat, quoting a March 2023 Nature paper using the mission’s data.
Scisat not only tracks pollutants but will help map them out by altitude. An instrument often known as a Fourier transform spectrometer allows the satellite to stare upon trace gases below in vertical distribution, which essentially means in slices of Earth’s atmosphere. Each of Scisat’s instruments also record spectra (light signatures) of sunlight shining through the atmosphere; this process lets scientists analyze chemical elements within the air.
And that is not all Scisat has done recently. In a Science publication, scientists tracked water vapor within the stratosphere from the huge Tonga volcano eruption of 2022. The satellite has generated at the least 70 high-impact papers since its launch 20 years ago, Dejmak said. The info will proceed to be useful even after the mission eventually ends no prior to 2024, based on current funding.
While Canada just isn’t constructing a direct successor for Scisat yet, the country is within the early stages of developing WildFireSat, which can be optimized to trace lively fires and to alert first responders on the bottom as early as possible.
The 20-year-old Scisat also brings up a difficulty that has also been discussed in NASA and European Space Agency circles: ensuring that latest missions go up to interchange or enhance the satellites that may eventually age out.
NASA’s Karen Germain, director of the agency’s Earth Science Division, spoke in a July 20 livestreamed climate change event about how essential it’s to maintain quite a lot of missions in space.
“This wide diversity of observations sustained over time has taught us much of what we understand about how and why the Earth system, including climate, is changing,” she said, noting the science includes facets just like the energy cycle, climate variability and changes within the atmosphere.
“Our science is not done until we have communicated it,” Germain added, saying that is very true on the subject of public safety. “This has never been more essential or compelling than it’s today.”