ECOSTRESS obtained this species on the night of July 9 over the territory of Egypt. Yellow and red are higher temperatures. The Nile River is seen as a thin blue line. Black and white insert - level of detail
A few days after the successful installation of the newest Earth observation mission ECOSTRESS on the ISS, the device managed to collect the first scientific data on the temperature of the planetary surface. ECOSTRESS will measure the temperature index of plants from space, allowing scientists to determine how much vegetation uses water, and how drought affects their condition and health.
The device was launched on June 29 at the Air Force Canaveral (Florida) as a cargo delivered by a SpaceX Dragon rocket. The first days spent on testing and launching the device. The first time ECOSTRESS saw the light on July 9th. Satellite missions often take weeks and months to get the first quality information. But ECOSTRESS performs the task at a fast pace. This is an example of a new class of low-cost and fast-developing NASA scientific instruments. It was launched 4 years after the start of the project. Now the ECOSTRESS team checks the device and gets preliminary information about science. They plan to spend about a month on this process. Scientists have completed the initial calibration of scientific data and are now comparing them with similar measurements from ground control sites. When the process is complete, ECOSTRESS will begin a one-year scientific mission.