With only 125 kilos in weight - and as small as the size of a dishwasher - the first Arctic Weather Satellite, AWS, has successfully been launched with the mission to provide better weather forecasts for the Arctics, a region severely affected by climate change. The small satellite is equipped with a 19-channel cross-track microwave radiometer using semi-conductor technology fabricated at Chalmers University of Technology.
The new Arctic weather satellite, AWS, was lofted into orbit on 16 August at 20:56 CEST aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, just north of Los Angeles. About six hours later, the KSAT ground station in Svalbard, Norway, received the all-important signal indicating the satellite’s safe arrival in orbit.
With a mission to collect important data on moisture and temperature levels in the Earth's atmosphere, and measure the amount of ice in clouds, the satellite is sent off to enhance our understanding of the weather conditions at the poles. The clouds, and what happens inside them, are important parameters when trying to predict climate change.
Patrick Eriksson, Full Professor of Geoscience and Remote Sensing at Chalmers University of Technology, is one of the advisors in the development of the new Arctic weather satellite, AWS:
“It’s basic physics that the earth's average temperature rises if you increase the amount of greenhouse gases. But calculating exactly how much the earth is getting warmer is really complicated. Predicting how the clouds will behave and look in the event of different emissions of greenhouse gases is particularly difficult. The clouds affect the earth's radiation balance in different ways that are both warming and cooling,” says Patrick Eriksson in an interview published on the Swedish Space Agency's website.
Microwave radiometer enables unpreceded Arctic weather forecasts
To date, satellite coverage in the Arctic remains insufficient and more frequent data are urgently needed to improve weather forecasts for this susceptible polar region. The effects of the climate crisis are felt more acutely in the Arctic than anywhere else on the planet and the weather in the region is not only severe, but changes extremely quickly.
The Arctic weather satellite, which weighs just 125 kg, carries a 19-channel cross-track scanning microwave radiometer that will yield high-resolution vertical profiles of atmospheric temperature and humidity in all weather conditions – and provide precise and short-term weather forecasts.
“AWS is equipped with a new type of instrument, an advanced microwave radiometer, which can measure ice formation deep inside clouds. This is a new type of observational data compared to existing weather satellites,” says Patrick Eriksson.
It uses a type of semi-conductor diode fabricated at the Department of Microtechnology and Nanoscience at Chalmers University of Technology.
“We have developed a Schottky barrier semiconductor diode in Chalmers' clean room, Myfab, which several of the instrument's receivers use. More specifically, for the 54 GHz and 183 GHz channels, which are used in 14 of microwave radiometer’s 19 channels. These devices were originally developed for another weather satellite mission MetOp, and fabricated by Vladimir Drakinskiy,” says Jan Stake, professor of Terahertz and millimeter wave technology at Chalmers.
Contributing efforts of several Swedish actors
If all goes according to plan, the Arctic weather satellite will make it possible to more accurately scrutinize climate models and eventually improve them. Climate models are computer simulations that can, for example, estimate climate change in the coming decades, due to global warming. The new satellite - along with several other weather satellites that will be launched in the next few years - should give the researchers more knowledge about what values can be obtained for the clouds in the climate models.
The mission is partly a result of the efforts of several Swedish actors. OHB Sweden leads the Arctic Weather Satellite industrial consortium for ESA and the microwave radiometer is built by AAC Omnisys in Gothenburg, Sweden, part of AAC Clyde Space.
"With the launch of this satellite today we are laying the base for a potentially large constellation that will enable scientists to better observe the Arctic and thus collect important data to tackle climate change,” says OHB CEO Marco Fuchs after the successful launch.
Patrick Eriksson and his colleagues at the Division of Earth Sciences and Remote Sensing at Chalmers University of Technology will lead the work in Sweden to use this data to predict how the Earth's climate will evolve in the coming decades.
More info:
AWS (Arctic Weather Satellite) is a satellite project funded by the European Space Agency (ESA) and largely developed by Swedish organisations and companies. Read more about AWS at the Swedish National Space Agency website.
- Full Professor, Terahertz and Millimetre Wave Laboratory, Microtechnology and Nanoscience