Shooting Stars Are The Next Phase Of Space Tech

Shooting Star is officially a member of the Climate Change Mitigation Arsenal. But wait, you might be thinking, aren't shooting stars just meteorites burning up in Earth's atmosphere? How can it help reduce the impact of climate change? This is a natural question that Tokyo-based ALE aims to answer by officially launching the SKY CANVAS project. SKY CANVAS aims to collect important climate data by deploying artificial shooting stars, observing their effect on the atmosphere (one of the five layers of Earth's atmosphere) and showing stars captured by Earth as meteor showers.

ALE has developed three satellites (two of which are in orbit) capable of receiving small metal balls, each about 1 centimeter in size. When the satellite reaches its optimal position—249 miles in the atmosphere—automatic control will release the ball. When the grains, called "meteorite particles" by ALE, enter Earth's atmosphere, they turn into a high-temperature plasma. This plasma then emits meteor light, simulating a meteor shower.

Plasma is also key to measuring atmospheric data that leaks out of the mesosphere, the least known layer of Earth's atmosphere. That's why scientists in the field plan to track the path and output of plasma light, and determine key indicators, including wind speed, atmospheric composition, and other specific aspects that influence weather patterns.

Although much of the information about what data, in particular, ALE will collect is not clear, the ultimate goal of the launch, according to ALE, is to promote climate research and mitigate the effects of natural disasters caused by climate change. The official launch is scheduled for 2025.

The tower star ALE is not the only example of space technology development. According to the World Economic Forum, in the summer of 2022 French aerospace engineer Frédéric Pasternak developed a "prism" capable of capturing radiation readings and "temperature, humidity and concentration of air above the ground." Prisma is installed on one of the three satellites of the European Operational Meteorological Satellite Program and will help the organization to identify atmospheric gases.

In the private sector, the analyst company Spire uses nanosatellites to take thousands of measurements of the atmosphere every day. The monitored data includes pressure, humidity and temperature. Similarly, space data company Pixxel is building a network of hyperspectral Earth imaging satellites to monitor and predict global phenomena. And in March, Pixxel received a 5-year contract from the National Reconnaissance Agency to provide remote sensing capabilities through modeling, simulation and data evaluation.

Why is it important to collect this data?

According to the World Meteorological Organization, the frequency and intensity of natural disasters will increase as climate change progresses. In 2022 alone, 18 disasters occurred in the United States with total damages exceeding $1 billion. In the same year, global weather events caused by climate change caused an estimated $313 billion in economic damage. Expanding access to critical data can influence global policies and markets.

Humanity's ability to prepare for and mitigate these natural disasters will only increase through accurate measurements such as wind speed, atmospheric composition and levels of various greenhouse gases (such as carbon monoxide, methane and other compounds).

At a larger level, space data collection techniques allow scientists to distinguish between natural levels of climate variability and conditions that trouble humans. A 2020 report from Frontier Technologies says that “satellite measurements of changes in land temperature, sea level, atmospheric gases, ice loss and forest cover …] future climate climate.” . The data is comprehensive, and without it we are fighting the climate crisis with one hand behind our backs.

[Want to learn more about the technologies and trends driving the clean economy? Sign up for our free Climate Tech Rundown newsletter. ]

What Elon Musk's 42,000 Earth Satellites Can Do