Electron, Rocket Lab’s small satellite launch vehicle, launched twice, just ~2 weeks aside from the businesses Launch Complex 1 in Mahia, Latest Zealand to deliver the 4 CubeSat constellation to orbit.
Payload deployment confirmed! Congratulations to the launch team on our thirty seventh Electron launch, and to our mission partners at @NASA @NASA_LSP @NASAAmes: the TROPICS constellation is officially on orbit! pic.twitter.com/xAy7ltg7m1
— Rocket Lab (@RocketLab) May 26, 2023
The 2 missions, dubbed ‘Rocket Like a Hurricane’ and ‘Coming to a Storm Near You,’ contain two 11.8-lb (5.34 kg) CubeSats each delivered to a 30-degree orbital inclination to ensure that the constellation to observe tropical systems forming within the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean and can be able to performing scans about once every hour.
The power to perform far more frequent scans can be an upgrade over current weather tracking satellites with the ability to scan storms roughly every three to 6 hours. The 3U CubeSats carry a high-performance radiometer that may give you the option to see contained in the structure of tropical systems through the tops of the clouds including high-resolution scans of the eyewall.
![](https://www.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/52926427616_10fc47f82e_k.jpg)
Rocket Lab’s Electron awaits lift-off from Launch Complex 1 on the Mahia Peninsula in Latest Zealand (Credit Rocket Lab)
NASA’s TROPICS (Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats) CubeSats, were initially to be launched in mid-2022, but the primary 2 were lost when the Astra Rocket 3.3 failed during its upper stage burn. NASA then chosen Rocket Lab to launch the constellation from Launch Complex 2 in Virginia but later modified to Launch Complex-1 in Latest Zealand with a purpose to have the constellation on orbit in time for the 2023 hurricane season which officially begins June 1st.
These aren’t the primary TROPICS CubeSats to make it to orbit, the TROPICS Pathfinder CubeSat was delivered to orbit on the Transporter-2 mission aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 on June 30, 2021.
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