Dr. William J. Blackwell, Fellow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory
Research Interests: Atmospheric remote sensing from airborne and spaceborne platforms, including the development and calibration of airborne and space-borne microwave sensors; the retrieval of geophysical products from remote radiance measurements; and the application of electromagnetic, signal processing, and estimation theory.
Research Highlights: There is no question that NASA satellite missions, such as those of the Earth Observing System (EOS) have enhanced our understanding of the total Earth system and the effects of natural and human-induced changes on the environment. At the same time, there’s no denying that NASA’s flagship Earth-observing satellites, such as Terra and Aqua, or the spacecraft of the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) and Joint Polar-Orbiting Satellite System (JPSS) missions require significant investments of time and resources to design, build, and launch. For example, the JPSS program, which began in the 2010s and will continue well into the 2030s, has a budget of more than $11 billion.
As an alternative to these larger and more budget- and time-intensive programs, some scientists are turning to small satellites, such as SmallSats and CubeSats, which offer more cost-effective platforms for conducting space-based scientific investigations and testing advanced mission concepts, such as using constellations or swarms of satellites to boost observational frequency. The term “SmallSat” refers to spacecraft that have a mass of 180 kilograms or less and are about the size of a large kitchen refrigerator. CubeSats are even smaller and range in size from one to 12 units (one unit or "1U" measures 10x10x10 centimeters).
These smaller, less-resource intensive satellites are playing a central role in NASA’s Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of SmallSats (TROPICS) mission. TROPICS was created to study tropical cyclones via a constellation of CubeSats equipped with high-performance microwave sounders. Although existing polar-orbiting weather satellites can generally observe the characteristics of tropical storms and hurricanes once every few hours, this observational frequency still leaves coverage gaps during which storms may quickly strengthen. When its entire constellation is in orbit, TROPICS will help fill these gaps by providing near-hourly observations of a storm’s precipitation, temperature, and humidity, allowing scientists to better understand what drives storm intensification.
“Data from this mission will be available with unprecedented revisit rates for this kind of observation—one hour vs every four to six hours with present state-of-the-art technology,” said Dr. William Blackwell, Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Laboratory, and Principal Investigator of the TROPICS mission. “This new data will capture storm dynamics that we hope will lead to better characterization and understanding of the interaction of the storms with their environment, ultimately leading, we hope, to improved forecasting of tropical cyclone track and intensity.”
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Laboratory is a federally funded research center that develops sensors, information, communications, and decision support technologies, and it is there that Blackwell and his colleagues developed a miniaturized microwave radiometer. Roughly the size of a cup of coffee, this small instrument will travel aboard each of the mission’s CubeSats and measure storm strength by detecting thermal radiation in the atmosphere.
