Three small satellites are nearing readiness for a mission that will transform how scientists understand the storms that give our planet half its fresh water—and the severe weather that puts lives at risk. NASA's INCUS mission (Investigation of Convective Updrafts) has completed assembly and testing on two of its three SmallSats, with the third expected to finish testing by September at the latest, setting the stage for launch in 2027.
Tropical convective storms are nature's most intense weather systems, characterized by sudden, violent updrafts that hoist enormous quantities of air and water skyward. They're Earth's primary precipitation engine, delivering more than half the world's fresh water to communities below—a resource that sustains billions of people. Yet these same storms spawn severe weather that can devastate homes, infrastructure, and lives. Until now, no space-based mission has studied their full three-dimensional dynamics from orbit, leaving crucial gaps in scientific understanding.
The INCUS mission, led by principal investigator Sue van den Heever of Colorado State University in Fort Collins, will change that. The three satellites will fly in tightly choreographed formation through low Earth orbit, separated by 30 seconds between the first and second satellites and 90 seconds between the second and third. This configuration allows them to observe storms as they develop and evolve in real time.
Each satellite carries a spaceborne radar instrument developed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, designed to measure convective mass flux—the vertical motion of air and water as storms build. The radars, paired with deployable mesh reflectors manufactured by Tendeg in Louisville, Colorado, will capture unprecedented detail about how air and water move within these towering cloud systems. The middle satellite carries an additional instrument: a microwave radiometer, also built at NASA JPL, which provides spatial context to the vertical precipitation profiles recorded by the radars.
The project has taken shape across three major facilities. The satellite assemblies were shipped in late 2025 and early 2026 to Blue Canyon Technologies in Lafayette, Colorado, where they were integrated with the company's spacecraft buses. The first two observatories have already survived rigorous vibration and thermal vacuum testing—ordeals designed to ensure they can withstand the violent forces of launch and the extreme temperatures of space. At Tendeg's facility, teams successfully deployed the mesh reflectors multiple times, confirming their reliability. After returning to Blue Canyon for final checks, the first two satellites will be stored before shipping to NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia next year.
The insights INCUS gathers will ripple outward into real-world impact. By revealing where, when, and why convective storms form—and how environmental factors like temperature, humidity, wind speed, and atmospheric pressure influence them—the mission will improve storm forecasting models. Better predictions mean communities in storm-prone regions can prepare more effectively, potentially saving lives and reducing property damage. Farmers, water managers, and disaster response teams will gain sharper tools for planning and adaptation.
INCUS is one of several interconnected missions within NASA's Earth System Observatory, a coordinated fleet studying Earth's dynamic natural systems. It's also part of FALCON (Fleet for the Atmosphere Linking Commercial Observations with NASA), a collaboration that weaves together hardware and expertise from NASA centers, universities, and commercial partners. As the first mission to map tropical storm dynamics from space, INCUS represents a leap forward in humanity's ability to understand and live alongside the planet's most powerful weather engines.