Blue Canyon Technologies Satellites Launched for NASA’s Climate Mission

Blue Canyon Technologies, a subsidiary of RTX specializing in small satellite manufacturing, has established communications with two cube satellites built for NASA’s Polar Radiant Energy in the Far InfraRed Experiment mission.

Designed to measure Earth’s heat emissions from the polar regions, PREFIRE aims to improve climate and ice modeling, Blue Canyon said.

The mission, managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, seeks to provide data to enhance predictions on how global warming will impact sea ice loss, ice sheet melt and rising sea levels.

Blue Canyon provided two 6U CubeSats for the mission.

The project is a collaborative effort between NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which provided the thermal infrared spectrometer payloads for the CubeSats, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which will process the data collected by the satellites.

Chris Winslett, Blue Canyon’s general manager, said refining climate models will yield better forecasts for storm severity, frequency, coastal erosion and flooding.