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Air NZ on board with new climate change research
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Air NZ on board with new climate change research
Imagine if scientists could accurately predict the severity of storms and other climate phenomena, giving those in their path potentially life-saving information.
On this page
NASA's Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) currently has 8 satellites orbiting the Equator using a technique called Global Navigation Satellite System Reflectometry (GNSS-R). The satellites receive signals directly from GPS satellites and signals reflected from the Earth. By comparing the characteristics of these 2 sets of signals, CYGNSS makes accurate measurements of tropical storms and other phenomena to provide valuable data to help scientists better predict cyclones and hurricanes.
Now Air New Zealand has come on board to extend the mission and monitor the environmental signs of climate change over Aotearoa New Zealand.
By September 2022 a next-generation GNSS-R sensor will be fitted to an Air New Zealand Q300 aircraft flying domestic routes. As the plane flies around the country, sensors will collect high resolution data on soil moisture, flood and coastal inundation dynamics across New Zealand’s diverse landscapes.
Known as Rongowai which combines the Maori words rongo (to sense) and wai (water) the sensor will gather important data to help predict tropical storms, as well as enable new climate change research in New Zealand.
Rongowai will provide unique ground and airborne validation of CYGNSS science data products, as well as allow NASA to advance the technology readiness of the new sensor in support of future satellite missions.
In 2019, MBIE signed agreements with NASA and Air New Zealand to enable collaboration with the mission. The mission is being supported through MBIE’s Catalyst Fund.
Video Transcript
[Visual: Delwyn sitting in the University of Auckland Mission Control Centre with satellite tracking screens running behind her]
[Question on screen: What is the Rongowai Mission?]
Delwyn Moller: One thing that I'm really excited about for the Rongowai mission is, it follows in the footsteps of the CYGNSS mission. And I saw the CYGNSS mission, when it first was announced, and then launched, didn't know anything about the technology and didn't really know anything about the mission,
[Visual: Animated re-creation of CYNSS satellites moving around the globe and it moving in space]
Delwyn Moller: but it was designed for looking at tropical cyclones. And they had an oceanographic science team and since then, as I go to the professional meetings, year after year, the science team has grown and grown and grown because they've started looking at the terrestrial data.
[Visual: Moving drone shot of wetlands]
Delwyn Moller: Now we have, you know, terrestrial hydrology science teams and we have the wetland ecology, science teams, and people are doing stuff with the data that they never anticipated and the same will be true for Rongowai.
[Visual: Delwyn sitting in the University of Auckland Mission Control Centre with satellite tracking screens running behind her]
[Question on screen: How does the Rongowai sensor work?]
Delwyn Moller: The data that we're hoping to get or we will receive is, basically we're getting reflected GPS signals.
[Visual: Animated re-creation of CYNSS satellites moving around the globe]
Delwyn Moller: So the signals that are around us that we're using all the time to navigate and that the aircraft is already receiving,
[Visual: Delwyn and colleague Chris talking and looking at computer screen that shows flight plan]
Delwyn Moller: what we're able to do is interpret that by the interaction that I had with the surface that it interacted with. So when it bounced off, it's off the surface, it's changed in some way.
[Visual: Satellite image of fields showing different coloured sections of soil, moving to drone shot of a coastline and drone shots of a pine forest]
Delwyn Moller: And with that change, we can actually relate that to changes in soil moisture content, or changes in whether it's wet or whether it's dry.
[Visual: Delwyn and colleague Chris talking and looking at computer screen]
Delwyn Moller: When you start looking at those dynamics, it can tell us a lot when we tie that into land use practices, changing patterns, due to climate change, etc.
[Visual: Delwyn sitting in the University of Auckland Mission Control Centre with satellite tracking screens running behind her]
Delwyn Moller: So we may see more susceptibility towards drought and flooding and where there's that occurring, and see that over time records and see how it progresses over time.
[Visual: Steve sitting in front of the Air NZ Q300 aircraft that the Rongowai sensor has been installed on]
[Question on screen: How is the sensor improved from the CYGNSS mission?]
Steve Musko: The current constellation has GNSS receivers that were developed about 10 years ago. And the new receivers have more capability, they can track more satellites.
[Visual: Shot of Air NZ Engineer with the Rongowai sensor, followed by a close up on the sensor with the project partner’s logos on it]
Steve Musko: At the same time, they can collect more data at the same time, and then collect different kinds of data.
[Visual: Steve sitting in front of the AirNZ Q300 aircraft that the Rongowai sensor has been installed on]
Steve Musko: Originally, the CYGNSS mission was designed to do one thing, and that was to determine wind speeds over the ocean and in tropical cyclones. Some very smart scientists figured out that they could use that same data for other purposes. One of them is soil moisture, and the other is flood inundation.
[Visual: Delwyn sitting in the University of Auckland Mission Control Centre with satellite tracking screens running behind her]
[Question on screen: How is the Rongowai data collected?]
Delwyn Moller: Okay, so the data will phone home if you like.
[Visual: Shot of the Air NZ Q300 plane with the propellors starting]
Delwyn Moller: So when the aircraft lands, then it knows that now's the time that I can transmit this information home, which it does over a regular cell gateway.
[Visual: Shot of Rongowai sensor dashboard on computer screen and an example of a potential flight plan that the AirNZ Q300 will take]
Delwyn Moller: That data will be collected here at the University of Auckland at the Payload Operations Center. We can do health checks, just to make sure that everybody's system is performing as we expect. But also in addition to that, we can unpacked the science data, and then turn that into actual science products. So that data will be available globally.
[Visual: Chris sitting in the University of Auckland Mission Control Centre with the Rongowai flight track demonstration on the screen behind him]
[Question on screen: How is the Rongowai data processed?]
Chris Seal: Where we've taken this compressed data string that we've got and pulled it apart into the various components. We then use that chop that file up into pieces and to say within that piece, this piece should be a number, this piece should be an array of numbers.
[Visual: Chris sitting in front of example of the potential flight path and reach of Rongowai across Aotearoa New Zealand]
[Question on screen: What will the Rongowai data be used for?]
Matthew Wilson: It's going to be producing some fantastic data that we're expecting to use in a whole host of other projects that we that we run. And we're part of the project, largely because we have a long history of working with these sorts of data.
[Visual: Chris sitting in front of a programme that tracks soil moisture levels across Aotearoa New Zealand]
Matthew Wilson: The best part about these data is that they fit in a gap in our knowledge about soil moisture across the country.
[Visual: Screen showing the programme data that tracks soil moisture levels across Aotearoa New Zealand]
Matthew Wilson: So we have information about soil moisture already from satellites, or from ground base gauges.
But on one end, the satellite data provide great information, lots of dynamic information about where is wet and where it’s dry. But it’s quite coarse, we don’t have the detail on the ground that we really need for decision makers to improve their decisions in how much water to irrigate on their fields, for example.
[Visual: Chris sitting in front of a programme that tracks soil moisture levels across Aotearoa New Zealand]
Matthew Wilson: On the other end of the scale, we have ground based gauges which provide lots of detailed information, but at one location. So what we're hoping for from these data is to fill in that gap in the data, provide information quite detailed across the country, and improving our knowledge about about the soil moisture, as we collect data over time.
[Visual: Delwyn sitting in the University of Auckland Mission Control Centre with satellite tracking screens running behind her]
[Question on screen: What is unique about the Rongowai mission?]
Delwyn Moller: The Rongowai partnership is unique in that one of the key elements is we're partnering with a commercial passenger airline.
[Visual: Shot of the AirNZ Q300 wing with the plane number ZK-NFA on it. Then shots of AirNZ engineers removing the aircraft seats and installing the sensor]
Delwyn Moller: And so what they're bringing to us is really a capability for long term observations, that essentially come for free.
[Visual: Shot of Air NZ Q300 taking off and a shot of the coastline and mountains from the plane window]
Delwyn Moller: And I'm really just quite proud that our country and Air New Zealand was forward thinking enough and open to this idea and I'm hoping that the sets are a paradigm for other such partnerships going forward. Not just within New Zealand but with other airlines, because the scientific impact will be huge.