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White House, NASA tout new satellites to monitor climate change, hurricanes

The White House is providing fresh details of a major satellite program that administration officials call poised to reveal vital information about climate change and extreme weather events.

Why it matters: Known as the "Earth System Observatory," the program consists of at least five satellites to be launched through 2029 that will enhance, or in some cases revolutionize, the capabilities of the space agency's existing fleet of Earth-observing satellites.


Details: In an interview with Axios on Monday, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said the upcoming satellite constellation will look at everything from aerosols — tiny particles in the atmosphere that are a major source of uncertainty in climate models — to sea level rise.

  • He said these missions will observe the changes in the planet's forests and ice sheets, as well as shifts in water resources and geological phenomena.
  • “All of these will create a 3D view of our Earth from the atmosphere to the bedrock," Nelson said.

Yes, but: Some of these satellites, including a radar imaging mission known as NISAR, which can measure shifts in Earth’s surface down to a resolution of a half-inch, have been in the works for some time.

  • That joint U.S.-India mission is set to launch next year.
  • Others, however, are still on the drawing board, and NASA is taking inspiration from a 2017 report from the National Academies of Sciences.

State of play: Nelson said the program's prominent inclusion in a White House's hurricane preparedness fact sheet on Monday, along with added funding for FEMA, indicates the administration’s support for it.

  • "They are the ones that announced the Earth System Observatory," Nelson said when asked about White House buy-in for what would be an expensive, multi-year program.
  • "Now it didn't start today, because you can't build a sophisticated spacecraft that you're gonna launch in a year and a half... that’s already underway and is being funded," he said of the NISAR spacecraft.

The big picture: Nelson comes to the NASA job having served in both houses of Congress and, while a lawmaker, flying aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia in 1986. While orbiting the globe, he said he felt what astronauts call the "overview effect," a newly deepened appreciation for the uniqueness of Earth and its fragility.

  • "For example, coming across Brazil I could see with the naked eye, the color differential in the upper Amazon region, which is where they were destroying the rainforest — and then I could look in the same window to the east, and see all of the additional silt that was coming out of the Amazon into the Atlantic," Nelson said.
  • "I became more of an environmentalist when I flew in space."

What to watch: As NASA administrator, Nelson is in a science communication, rather than policy-making role. But he shares President Biden's sense of urgency on climate change.

  • “Now I'm in a position to try to help my friend, who is the President, and what he is trying to do, is to shape the reality of what is happening to our planet into the focus of people's minds, that the Earth is in fact heating up, and we'd better get about the business of trying to do something about it," he said.
  • "Otherwise, you will continue to have more ferocious storms, and, and they will be larger."

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Podcast: The vaccine race turns toward nationalism

The coronavirus pandemic is worsening, both in the U.S. and abroad, with cases, hospitalizations and deaths all rising.

Axios Re:Cap digs into the state of global vaccine development — including why the U.S. and China seem to going at it alone — with medicinal chemist and biotech blogger Derek Lowe.

School board recalls in 2021 skyrocket amid organized campaigns for critical race theory bans

Efforts to recall school board members are surging around the U.S. — and especially in California — amid Republican efforts to quash teaching about institutional racism.

Why it matters: Coordinated efforts by conservative groups are shaping public education, fueled by controversies over race as as well as backlash to COVID-19 closures.

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