What you should know about NASA’s Earth Science Missions for 2022

National Aeronautics and Space Administration, USA, popularly called by its acronym NASA, has scheduled as many as 4 Earth Science Missions for the year 2022. These missions will guide scientists to study climactic conditions and weather in greater details. NASA has stated that its Earth-observing satellites will help to successfully carry out these missions. 

NASA’s Earth Science Missions: What are they? 
NASA has planned to launch 4 Earth Science Missions in 2022. They are: TROPICS, EMIT, NOAA’s JPSS-2, and SWOT. Each of these missions is designed uniquely to extensively view different climactic conditions of earth. 

TROPICS 
NASA is going to implement six small satellites for this mission to examine and provide precise measurements of tropical cyclones. The satellites are set to traverse in pairs in three different orbits providing specific rapid information at an interval of every 50 minutes regarding storm’s precipitation, temperature and humidity. The data collected from this mission will guide scientists to better analyse the causes behind these tropical cyclones and will also enable them to make more accurate weather forecasts. 

EMIT 
The EMIT mission, also called Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation, will use NASA satellites to study the origin and composition of minerals and dust participles and analyse how they affect the earth. For this mission, NASA will use an imaging spectrometer that is able to examine the visible and infrared light reflecting from our planet’s surface. The mission is set to launch from the International Space Station (ISS) and will last for an entire year. 

NOAA’s JPSS-2 
At present, NASA’s Joint Polar Satellite System in collaboration with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is orbiting the planet and provides valuable data that help in predicting extreme weather conditions, for instance storms. These satellites combo also give out information on upcoming floods, wildfires, volcanoes, smog, dust storms and sea ice. In 2022, NASA plans to continue with their partnership with NOAA and launch the mission JPSS-2 to further guide scientists in understanding and making the right weather forecasts. In fact, the two government space agencies have planned three similar joint missions in the upcoming years.  

SWOT 
NASA’s SWOT mission, also called Surface Water and Ocean Topography mission, will examine major surface water bodies of the planet earth like oceans, seas, rivers and lakes and will collect data that will help marine scientists to better understand and analyse how the ongoing climate change affects these water bodies and vice versa. It is also aimed to provide sufficient information on how these water bodies help in absorbing the excessive heat and hazardous greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide from the planet’s land surface.