Winds sensor opens door for Earth science from ISS

A $26 million science instrument carried to the International Space Station last month by SpaceX's Dragon cargo capsule has been switched on and is measuring winds over the world's oceans to help forecasters track the intensity of tropical cyclones, NASA officials said.

The International Space Station-Rapid Scatterometer instrument is mounted on the space station's European Space Agency Columbus module. Credit: NASA Made of leftover parts from a satellite developed in the 1990s, the instrument package was mounted on the outside of the space station to fill a data gap that could degrade the ability of meteorologists to monitor hurricanes.

Without the need for a dedicated launcher or a standalone satellite, NASA saved more than $300 million by recycling spare parts launching the wind monitoring sensor to the space station, according to Howard Eisen, the mission's project manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

"RapidScat is the ultimate effort in recycling," Eisen said. "We took hardware, some of which was 17 or 18 years old, and we put it to new use."

The International Space Station-Rapid Scatterometer, or ISS-RapidScat, instrument launched from Cape Canaveral on Sept. 21 in the unpressurized trunk section of an unmanned SpaceX Dragon supply ship.

The Dragon spacecraft, carrying more than 2.5 tons of pressurized and unpressurized cargo such as food, experiments and spare parts, arrived at the space station Sept. 23.

Under the control of engineers at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, the station's Canadian-built robot arm and Dextre manipulator -- a two-armed device with mechanical hands -- completed a two-step procedure to pull the RapidScat instrument and its mounting adapter from the Dragon spaceship's trunk.

The first step on Sept. 29 attached an adapter for RapidScat to an external platform on the space station's European Columbus laboratory module. After engineers made sure the adapter had a firm mechanical and electrical attachment to the station, the outpost's robotics system extracted the RapidScat sensor system and mated it to the adapter plate on Columbus.

The instrument was powered up Oct. 1, according to a NASA press release, and it should be supplying weather forecasters with operational data by the end of the month.

Part of the RapidScat instrument assembly is seen attached to the space station's Dextre robot during the transfer from the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. Credit: NASA RapidScat's primary sensor is a 100 watt, 2.5-foot-diameter microwave antenna that spins at nearly 20 rpm, emitting and receiving signals bounced off the ocean's surface.

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Winds sensor opens door for Earth science from ISS