Earth Data School
About
Full catalog/PREFIRE_SAT1_0-BUS-TLM
PREFIRE_SAT1_0-BUS-TLM·vR01·dataset

Spacecraft health and status data (PREFIRE satellite 1)

Polar Radiant Energy in the Far InfraRed Experiment (PREFIRE) Satellite 1 telemetry R01
atmosphere NASA LARC_CLOUD Level 0 active CSV
In plain English

What it measures. The position, velocity, and pointing direction of one of the two PREFIRE CubeSats over time, plus timing and orbit details, recorded once per second.

How it's made. This is housekeeping telemetry from the PREFIRE Satellite 1 spacecraft, provided as simple spreadsheet-style (CSV) files.

How & where you'd use it. Combined with an elevation map, it lets scientists pin PREFIRE's heat measurements to exact spots on Earth; it is a technical support file rather than a science product on its own.

What's measured

ATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC RADIATION › OUTGOING LONGWAVE RADIATION

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2024-06-05 → ongoing
  • Measured byPREFIRE-SAT1 (TIRS-PREFIRE)
  • Processing levelLevel 0
  • Spatial extent-180, -84, 180, 84
  • FormatsCSV
  • StatusACTIVE

What you can do with it

  • Map air pollutants — NO₂, aerosols, ozone
  • Track greenhouse gases and Earth's energy budget
  • Feed weather and air-quality analysis
Official description

Polar Radiant Energy in the Far InfraRed Experiment (PREFIRE) Satellite 1 Telemetry (PREFIRE_SAT1_0-BUS-TLM) contains positioning and pointing information for one of two PREFIRE polar orbiting CubeSats. Both CubeSats carry a PREFIRE Thermal Infrared Spectrometer (TIRS-PREFIRE), a push broom spectrometer with 63 channels measuring mid- and far-infrared (FIR) radiation from approximately 5 to 53 µm. Most polar emissions are in the FIR but have not been measured on a large scale. PREFIRE aims to fill knowledge gaps in the global energy budget by more accurately characterizing polar emissions. This information will be assimilated into global circulation and other models to predict future conditions more accurately. This collection contains the time, beta angle, orbit position and velocity, and the quaternion of PREFIRE Satellite 1 (PREFIRE-SAT1). Combined with a Digital Elevation Map, these telemeters geolocate PREFIRE data on the Earth’s surface. Data retrieval started June 29, 2024 and is ongoing. Geographic coverage is global, with the greatest concentration of data in the polar regions. This data is retrieved at a frequency of 1Hz and is available in CSV format. Positioning and pointing information for the sister satellite, PREFIRE-SAT2, can be found in the PREFIRE_SAT2_0-BUS-TLM collection.

Get the data

prefire_sat1_0-bus-tlm_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="PREFIRE_SAT1_0-BUS-TLM",
    version="R01",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),  # your area (W,S,E,N)
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),       # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream straight from LARC_CLOUD
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.