The two cubesats (a standard nanosatellite design), were launched on a Rocket Lab Electron rocket that lifted off from the company’s New Zealand site.

About half an hour after liftoff, the Electron deployed in the shoebox-sized Tropics cube satellites went into low-Earth orbit, about 550 kilometers above Earth.

Rocket Lab will launch the other two satellites that make up the Tropics constellation in about two weeks, if everything goes according to plan, reported the Space.com digital portal.

The Tropics cubesats will measure hour-by-hour formation and progression of tropical cyclones and hurricanes with greater specificity.

“We’ll get data that we’ve never had before, which is this ability to look in the microwave wavelength region of storms, on an hourly basis to watch the storm as it forms and intensifies,” Tropic Principal Investigator, Bill Blackwell told reporters.

We hope to improve our understanding of the basic processes that drive storms and ultimately improve our ability to forecast and track intensity, he added.

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