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There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
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Mariel Borowitz“Weather Forecasting:Cubesats Promise To Fill Weather Data Gap” featured comments by the Nunn School’s Mariel Borowitz. Science, December 11.
The massive weather satellites that plumb the atmosphere are facing a swarm of tiny competitors. Data from shoebox-sized private satellites, exploiting a new technique for probing the atmosphere, could significantly reduce forecast errors, researchers say. But national weather agencies, used to generating their own data, have so far been reluctant customers. At a workshop this week, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) hoped to address some of the stumbling blocks.
The big government systems are becoming increasingly fragile and unaffordable. Witness the $11.3 billion Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) at NOAA: It is drastically over budget and behind schedule for the planned 2017 launch of its JPSS-1 satellite, jeopardizing the flow of crucial weather data.
Companies say they can fill the gap with data from cheap CubeSats, small satellites the size of one or several 10-centimeter cubes (Science, 10 April, p. 172). Last week, Boulder, Colorado–based PlanetiQ booked a 2016 flight for its first two weather satellites. And after the successful launch of four satellites in September, San Francisco, California–based Spire says it is in negotiations to license its data to both government and private entities.
Yet NOAA has been hesitant to support the satellite weather startups, says Mariel Borowitz, a space policy researcher at the Georgia Institute of Technology [Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts] in Atlanta. “They have said, ‘Build it and once it's in operation, then we'll decide if we want it or not.’”
