Each year, severe weather in the U.S.
causes $5 billion in damage and losses
up to 10,000 lives lost globally.
NASA's Earth Science Technology Office funded a CubeSat project
that could validate a new technology approach to improve weather forecasting.
Our ESTO funded project is called MiRaTA.
It stands for the Microwave Radiometer Technology Acceleration mission.
It has two really interesting Earth sensors on it.
One of them is going to be taking maps of temperature and water vapor and cloud ice on Earth.
It’s called a microwave radiometer.
...and one of them is a GPS radio occultation receiver.
It uses signals from GPS satellites.
The signal bends as it goes through the atmosphere, and we can measure that with the receiver.
...so that we can constantly monitor the Earth's weather systems.
... will go into our forecasting systems, and help us predict the tracks better;
help us to assess how much damage is expected, and plan emergency resources better.
You know, just generally contribute to advanced warning and responsiveness to weather systems.
Earth observations are really important.
Obviously we are here on earth, and its really important that we take good care of earth,
and we most importantly take good care of the people on earth, and
understanding weather systems lets us do that.