Mary-Louise Hoffman
A NASA spacecraft carrying a Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp.-built weather radiometer has been placed in orbit to start measuring rainfall and snowfall levels across the world.
The Global Precipitation Imager observatory satellite is spinning at 32 revolutions per minute and works to map global precipitation every three hours, Ball Aerospace said Tuesday.
“GMI is on the way to setting a new standard for data accuracy that will provide more timely, detailed information forecasters need to track extreme weather events,” said Rob Strain, president of Ball Aerospace.
“Using GMI’s data, the world’s scientists will have a more accurate picture of the world’s precipitation dataset,” Strain added.
The company designed the satellite with a microwave sensor to capture three-dimensional climate images that researchers can use to forecast drought, landslides and flood.
