Science

ARCTIC WEATHER SATELLITE

Meteorology / technology demonstration · ESA / EUMETSAT

The Arctic is one of the worst-observed places on the planet for weather data, and Europe just proved you can fix that with a satellite the size of a large suitcase instead of a school bus. The Arctic Weather Satellite, launched August 16, 2024 on Transporter-11, weighs just 120 kilograms—a fraction of the multi-ton weather satellites that have historically done this job—yet carries a 19-channel microwave radiometer sophisticated enough to measure atmospheric humidity and temperature down to sub-millimeter wavelengths never before used operationally. It's a proof-of-concept for ESA and EUMETSAT's planned EPS-Sterna constellation of small satellites meant to sharpen short-term Arctic forecasting, and it delivered fast: built in just 36 months from contract to launch, embracing what ESA calls a 'New Space' philosophy of automotive-grade components and agile engineering instead of the traditional decade-long satellite development cycle. Weeks after launch, AWS captured usable data on Storm Boris as it tore across central Europe, and its instrument performance has been judged on par with satellites many times its size and cost—a small, cheap satellite doing a big satellite's job.