SSEC to develop next-generation weather satellites

Building on a tradition that dates back 35 years to the first geostationary weather satellite, the Space Science and Engineering Center (SSEC) has been selected to help NASA develop a new generation of satellite technology that promises to greatly improve weather forecasting and the monitoring of atmospheric pollutants.

This week NASA selected SSEC as a key partner to help design and build an instrument known as GIFTS for Geostationary Imaging Fourier Transform Spectrometer.

SSEC will receive $10 million over five years from NASA to design and calibrate GIFTS and to write the software codes that will make the instrument’s data useful to forecasters and scientists. Based in part on technology developed at UW–Madison, GIFTS will be a part of NASA’s Earth Observing Mission 3 and will be launched into orbit sometime in 2003.

GIFTS, according to SSEC Interim Director Hank Revercomb, will be capable of dissecting the atmosphere in a far more detailed way than current geostationary weather satellites by looking at the weather across a wide swath of the spectrum of energy that the Earth radiates into space. GIFTS, says Revercomb, will observe the Earth in more than a thousand spectral bands, providing scientists with a wealth of new information and a way to read the nuances of such things as tornadoes, hurricanes and the movement and distribution of chemical gases and particles found in air pollution.

GIFTS will permit forecasters to greatly hone the accuracy of three-day weather predictions and extend the duration of forecasts up to five days, says Ghassem Asrar, NASA’s associate administrator for earth science. In addition to instrument design and development, the contract to UW–Madison includes significant support for a broad education and public outreach effort.