A small new NASA instrument may be able to help predict volcanic eruptions and monitor air quality.
Nicknamed NACHOS, which is short for the Nanosat Atmospheric Chemistry Hyperspectral Observation System, a prototype was launched from Virginia on Feb. 19 aboard a Northrop Grumman resupply mission to the International Space Station.
NACHOS will soon be perched aboard a tiny CubeSat satellite positioned about 480 km above Earth, where NASA hopes it will be able to detect traces of gases like sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide in the atmosphere.
“A dormant volcano just waking up may emit (sulfur dioxide) before there is any detectable seismic activity,” Los Alamos National Laboratory remote sensing researcher Steve Love explained in a news release. “That gives us a chance to identify a potentially erupting volcano before it actually blows.”
If successful, NACHOS will be the smallest and highest-resolution instrument of its kind in orbit, allowing it to zoom in on areas as small as 0.4 square kilometres. NASA says that could lead to new space-based systems that are able to monitor air quality for harmful gases in neighbourhoods and individual power plants.
"When we recognize that these gases are present and can localize their sources on a sub-kilometer scale, we have the opportunity to take action and minimize negative health outcomes,” said Love, who is a task lead on the NACHOS project.
NACHOS weighs just six kilograms and measures 300 centimetres cubed. It’s affixed to a CubeSat, which is a type of miniaturized and modular satellite system with components that are roughly the size of a Rubik’s cube.
NACHOS is currently sitting aboard a Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo spacecraft. When the spacecraft departs the International Space Station in May 2022, it will place NACHOS in low-Earth orbit before re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere. Unlike SpaceX’s partially reusable Dragon series of spacecraft, Cygnus spacecraft are expendable.
Love and his team expect NACHOS to orbit our planet for about a year.
“That will give us enough time to verify our instrument design and gather enough test data to ensure our technology concept is feasible,” Love said. “More power and less weight set NACHOS apart and make it an excellent candidate for future atmospheric trace gas missions.”
🌋 NASA ‘NACHOS’ instrument may help predict volcanic eruptions.
— NASA Marshall (@NASA_Marshall) February 22, 2022
NACHOS will be the smallest, highest resolution space-based instrument dedicated to monitoring atmospheric trace gases that will help predict volcanic eruptions, and monitor air quality.https://t.co/EqP64XQY02
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