Credit: Nasa/UH News
Dozens of students and faculty members at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa are celebrating the successful launch of a satellite they designed and built. Called the Hyperspectral Thermal Imager (HyTI), the spacecraft has been in development since 2018 and took flight from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on March 21. HyTI was ferried to the International Space Station via a SpaceX resupply mission and is expected to be deployed in May for a one-year mission gathering valuable data about Earth’s volcanic activity, wildfires, and soil moisture levels. The satellite is officially owned by NASA but will be operated by the Hawaiʻi SpaceFlight Lab.