NASA’s Tiny PREFIRE Satellites to Study Earth’s Polar Regions

B-roll images, animations and sound bites for media and public use. NASA’s Polar Radiant Energy in the Far-InfraRed Experiment (PREFIRE) will measure the amount of heat the planet emits into space from Earth’s polar regions. This information is key to understanding the balance of energy coming into and out of Earth and how that affects the planet’s climate. Two shoebox-size satellites will orbit the planet and take the first-ever systemic measurements of heat loss from the Arctic and Antarctic in far-infrared wavelengths. The data from PREFIRE will help scientists update climate and ice models, which will lead to better predictions of how sea level, weather, and snow and ice cover are likely to change. The PREFIRE mission was jointly developed by NASA and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages PREFIRE for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate and provided the spectrometers. Blue Canyon Technologies built the CubeSats and the University of Wisconsin-Madison will process the data the instruments collect. The launch services provider, Rocket Lab USA Inc. of Long Beach, California, will launch both PREFIRE CubeSats from Rocket Lab Launch Comple