Known as COWVR and TEMPEST, the duo is demonstrating that smaller, less expensive science instruments can play an important role in weather forecasting.
NASA recently built two weather instruments to test the potential of small, low-cost sensors to do some of the work of bulkier, pricier satellites. Both instruments have exceeded expectations as trial runs, and they are already delivering useful forecast information for the most devastating of storms, tropical cyclones.
Launched in late 2021 to the International Space Station, COWVR (short for Compact Ocean Wind Vector Radiometer) measures the speed and direction of wind at the ocean surface, and TEMPEST (Temporal Experiment for Storms and Tropical Systems) provides atmospheric water vapor measurements. Both instruments are part of Space Test Program-Houston 8 (STP-H8), a three-year demonstration mission funded by the U.S. Space Force, which also funded the construction of COWVR. TEMPEST was built by NASA as a flight spare for a prior mission, and Space Force repurposed it for STP-H8.
Imagery created from their data is being used by the U.S. Joint Typhoon Warning Center to track the location and intensity of tropical cyclones in the Indian and Pacific oceans. In fact, COWVR and TEMPEST images were among the sources used by a forecaster at the typhoon center in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, to pin down the location of Tropical Cyclone Mandous, which roiled the Bay of Bengal off southern India in December 2022.
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Image: Data from the COWVR and TEMPEST instruments aboard the International Space Station was used to create this image of Tropical Cyclone Mandous, which forecasters used to understand the December 2022 storm’s intensity and predict its path toward southern India.
(Credits: U.S. Joint Typhoon Warning Center/U.S. Naval Research Laboratory)