January 2004

New frontier: UM launches
another NASA science mission
A UM research group that designs software for NASA environmental satellites recently earned a major new mission from the space agency.

UM’s Numerical Terradynamic Simulation Group will produce software for NASA’s Hydrosphere State Mission. Steve Running, NTSG director, said the mission’s HYDROS satellite will study the Earth’s freeze-thaw transition and soil moisture on a daily basis.

Running said his team will write code for the freeze-thaw portion of the mission and will be responsible for distributing the resulting data once the satellite is in orbit. He said UM should receive about $5 million for this work during the lifetime of the mission from 2004 to 2012. The HYDROS satellite is tentatively set to launch in 2009.

“This really takes us into the next generation of remote-sensing research,” Running said. “We thought this Earth-monitoring product up from scratch, and we are going to produce it here and distribute it here from the beginning. This will be the most original work our lab has ever done.”

He said studying the Earth’s freeze-thaw characteristics on a global scale should lead to improved weather forecasting, better flood prediction and a keener understanding of how spring thaws trigger the growing season.

HYDROS will be a radar satellite, Running said, so it will be able to see through clouds. In orbit the satellite and its radar dish will resemble a huge, rotating, wire umbrella.

For information, contact:
Rita.Munzenrider@mso.umt.edu
University Relations
(406) 243-2522

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