Fresh-baked satellite will soon be our eye on Earth

[Nipuna]

(Image: Northrop Grumman Corporation)

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Fresh out of the oven, the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) is the first of five instruments ready to be to be installed onto the JPSS-1 Earth-monitoring satellite. The glowing yellow cavity is a radiometric calibration chamber – just one of the tongue-twisting tests that CERES passed with flying colours in preparation for launch.

"CERES is the first JPSS-1 instrument to reach this important milestone, and the others are not far behind," said Mary Kicza of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is working on the project with NASA.

CERES will measure how much of the sun's radiation Earth reflects. The goal is to understand the complex effect of clouds on Earth's radiation budget – the balance of the solar energy that our planet absorbs and reflects.

JPSS-1 is one of three satellites in the Joint Polar Satellite System, which will launch in 2017 and replace the US's failing network of environmental and weather-forecasting satellites.