Space Test Program Houston News Today

NASA has built small and inexpensive weather sensors to help forecasters track tropical cyclones. NASA constructed two weather instruments to test the capabilities of small, low-cost sensors in replicating the work of bigger and more expensive satellites.

Known as COWVR and TEMPEST, the duo is demonstrating that smaller, less expensive science instruments can play an important role in weather forecasting.

A SpaceX Dragon that twice splashed down has now landed for its last time — in Chicago. The spacecraft, which flew to the International Space Station, arrived at the Museum of Science and Industry.

Innovative mini instruments on the International Space Station have produced their first maps of global humidity and ocean winds.

Not long after the first TEMPEST-D completed a successful three-year mission, an identical tiny satellite sensor developed by researchers at Colorado State University and NASA’s JPL is back in orbit.

The Compact Ocean Wind Vector Radiometer (COWVR) instrument is to measure the direction and speed of winds at the ocean surface, while the Temporal Experiment for Storms and Tropical Systems (TEMPEST) looks at atmospheric humidity.