[NASA] NASA Awards Launch Service Task Order for Mission to Study Storm Formation

[SpaceMan 0]

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Credit: NASA

NASA has selected Firefly Aerospace Inc. of Cedar Park, Texas, to provide the launch service for the agency’s Investigation of Convective Updrafts (INCUS) mission, which aims to understand why, when, and where tropical convective storms form, and why some storms produce extreme weather. The mission will launch on the company’s Alpha rocket from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

The selection is part of NASA’s 

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

 (VADR) launch services contract. This contract allows the agency to make fixed-price indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity awards during VADR’s five-year ordering *******, with a maximum total value of $300 million across all contracts.

The INCUS mission, comprised of three SmallSats flying in tight coordination, will investigate the evolution of the vertical transport of air and water by convective storms. These storms form when rapidly rising water vapor and air create towering clouds capable of producing rain, hail, and lightning. The more air and water that rise, the greater the risk of extreme weather. Convective storms are a primary source of precipitation and cause of the most severe weather on Earth.

Each satellite will have a high frequency precipitation radar that observes rapid changes in convective cloud depth and intensities. One of the three 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.

NASA selected the INCUS mission through the agency’s

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

solicitation and

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

program. The principal investigator for INCUS is Susan van den Heever at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. Several NASA centers support the mission, including Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Key satellite system components will be provided by Blue Canyon Technologies and Tendeg LLC, both in Colorado. NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, manages the VADR contract.

To learn more about NASA’s INCUS mission, visit:

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

-end-

Tiernan Doyle
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
*****@*****.tld

Patti Bielling
Kennedy Space Center, Florida
321-501-7575
*****@*****.tld

Share

Details

Last Updated

Mar 04, 2025

Location

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Related Terms

• This is the hidden content, please

  • Sign In
  • or
  • Sign Up
• This is the hidden content, please

  • Sign In
  • or
  • Sign Up
• This is the hidden content, please

  • Sign In
  • or
  • Sign Up
• This is the hidden content, please

  • Sign In
  • or
  • Sign Up
• This is the hidden content, please

  • Sign In
  • or
  • Sign Up
• This is the hidden content, please

  • Sign In
  • or
  • Sign Up
• This is the hidden content, please

  • Sign In
  • or
  • Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

For verified travel tips and real support, visit: https://hopzone.eu/