INCUS
Firefly Alpha Block 2, Firefly Aerospace
Launch Area 0 A, Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia, USA
Launch time
No earlier than
NET 2027
Current date is a placeholder or rough estimation based on unreliable or interpreted sources.
How sure is this date?
The source gives year precision. Launch plans can change.
Source updated
UpdatedSlip history
No changes since we started tracking on .
- LL2 update
NET 2027
Read the source update - LL2 update
NET October 2026.
Read the source update - LL2 update
Added launch.
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Mission
INCUS on Firefly Alpha Block 2 from Launch Area 0 A. Launch time, status and recorded date changes from Launch Library 2.
The Investigation of Convective Updrafts (INCUS) is a NASA Earth science mission led by Colorado State University that will investigate the behavior of tropical storms in order to better represent these storms in weather and climate models. It consists of 3 SmallSats flying in tight coordination to study why convective storms, heavy precipitation, and clouds occur exactly when and where they form. Each satellite will have a high frequency precipitation radar that observes rapid changes in convective cloud depth and intensities. 1 of the 3 satellites also will carry a microwave radiometer to provide the spatial content of the larger scale weather observed by the radars. By flying so closely together, the satellites will use the slight differences in when they make observations to apply a novel time-differencing approach to estimate the vertical transport of convective mass.
- Mission type
- Earth Science
- Orbit
- Low Earth Orbit
Launch timeline
No timeline has been provided by the source.
Launch pad
Launch Area 0 A
Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia, USA (US)
Coordinates: 37.8337, -75.4881
View launch pad on a map