News item | 06-02-2024 | 06:30
Today the American space agency NASA will launch a rocket in Florida. This rocket carries a satellite into orbit around the Earth, which will conduct climate research. The satellite has a climate camera, the SPEXone, on which Dutch scientists have been working for years. This will solve one of the great riddles in climate science: what is the influence of very small dust particles on global warming?
Minister Dijkgraaf (Education, Culture and Science): “This Dutch invention will provide the missing puzzle piece of climate science. I am not only proud of this scientific tour de force itself. But also on the national and international collaboration that literally and figuratively raises Dutch science to great heights.”
Small particles, big influence
The earth is warming due to the emission of harmful gases. But how much is still uncertain. Director of the KNMI and climate scientist Maarten van Aalst: “We do not know exactly what the influence is of dust particles such as soot, ash and desert sand. Some particles reflect sunlight, keeping it cooler. Others absorb sunlight, causing the earth to warm up. And whether they retain water also matters a lot, which influences cloud formation. The more we map out these processes, the better we know what awaits us in a changing climate with heat, drought, more extreme showers and rising sea levels. That is invaluable.”
NASA mission
NASA’s PACE satellite on which the Dutch SPEXone is attached will be launched this morning at 7:30 a.m. Dutch time from the Cape Canaveral launch base with a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. There are two more American instruments on the satellite, one that studies cloud formation and one that studies the color of oceans. The satellite carries ten years of fuel and constantly transmits research data, which is accessible to everyone. Five research programs are being launched around the world and will be working with this data. The first results on the influence of dust particles on the climate are expected to be known next year.
Made in Holland
The SpexOne was developed and built by scientists from SRON, the Netherlands Space Institute in Leiden. They developed and built this instrument between 2018 and 2021, in collaboration with Airbus NL. The SpexOne weighs just under 12 kilos and looks like a cross between a shoebox and a deep fryer. But full of technology, which measures the smallest particles with greater precision than ever before. The SPEXone contains, among other things, a camera that measures how bright the reflected sunlight is in space, and how that light is affected by particles in the air.
Two years ago, scientists in Leiden completed construction, after which the SPEXone was transported to America. There it was extensively tested and attached to the satellite by NASA. The development and construction cost a total of 14 million. Nine million of this was funded by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science.
NASA may decide to postpone the launch at the last minute, for example due to bad weather. The launch is scheduled for 7:30 am and can be viewed live via NASA TV Live – NASA.