Two small NASA satellites dedicated to monitoring the development of hurricanes hour by hour took off from New Zealand on a rocket of the American company “Rocket Lab”.

The “Electron”, which belongs to the category of small bombers and has a height of 18 meters, took off at 13:00 local time (01:00 GMT) from Mahia in northern New Zealand, according to the company, “Rocket Lab”.

The weight of the two satellites, which are of the “CubeSat” category, do not exceed five kilograms, and they will be stationed at an altitude of regarding 550 km. Within regarding two weeks, a second rocket will be launched, also belonging to the “Rocket Lab” company, carrying two other satellites to complete this small constellation.

This constellation of satellites will be able to pass over Pacific typhoons every hour, while they currently pass every six hours. The mission is called “Tropics”.

NASA scientist Will McCarty said in a press conference that these satellites will allow scientists not only to “monitor what is happening at a specific moment, but also to know how the situation changes hour by hour.”

“We will still need large satellites, but what we can get from this mission is additional information to that already provided by our most prominent satellites,” he added.

This information collected by the new satellites regarding precipitation, temperature and humidity contributes to improving weather forecasts, especially where the hurricane will reach land and with what intensity, and thus better preparation for possible evacuations of the population living on the coasts.

The constellation was originally supposed to include six satellites instead of four, but the first two were lost when a rocket from the American company “Astra” failed shortly following take-off last year.

Hurricane Ian, which swept Florida in 2022, killed dozens, and caused losses of more than $100 billion, the largest climate disaster the world witnessed last year.