Hurricanes, cyclones, and other storm systems can cause thousands of deaths and billions of dollars in damage each year. In the last calendar year in the United States alone, major hurricanes have devastated parts of the East Coast, even in mountainous regions usually insulated from those major coastal storms. Timely and accurate hurricane forecasts could profoundly expedite preparation, evacuation, and survival in future disasters.

To better understand and predict these complex, dynamic storm systems, scientists need more frequent measurements. Though weather satellites provide coverage of storm systems, forecasts are still plagued by great uncertainty. Enter: TROPICS from the MIT Lincoln Laboratory (MIT LL).

Among all hurricane-sensing technologies, the greatest improvement to forecasting models comes from space-based microwave sounders, which penetrate cloud cover and measure 3D temperature, humidity, and precipitation within a storm. Under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) TROPICS program, MIT LL developed a small, lightweight microwave sounder that requires 25 times less power, 50 times less mass, and 112 times less volume than existing state-of-the-art polar-orbiting spacecraft, without sacrificing performance.

TROPICS — which stands for Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation Structure and Storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats — allows more sounders to be sent into orbit because of the significant cost savings associated with the technology. A constellation of these smaller sensors take precise measurements of the storms more frequently, tracking high-rate data to dramatically improve essential forecasting.

In 2018, the MIT LL team demonstrated the first-ever microwave-sounding data from a rapid-to-launch commercial small satellite, or CubeSat, which earned the laboratory funding from NASA’s Earth Venture-Instrument competition. By 2023, five satellites were launched to collect data on hurricane intensification.

Soon after, MIT LL found a transition partner in Tomorrow.io that planned to fabricate, launch, and operate a larger constellation of CubeSats than TROPICS, thereby improving hurricane prediction accuracy. TROPICS technology resulted from 15 years of MIT LL investment and government grants, and licensing challenges arose when negotiating a CRADA with Tomorrow.io, but success was achieved anyway.

The size of the sounder constellation will expand, improving upon its initial impact, thanks to MIT LL’s partnership with Tomorrow.io. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration also awarded a contract to Tomorrow.io to assess the quality, characteristics, and impacts of available commercial microwave sounder observations. This work significantly advances the science of storm tracking and measurement and the benefits to the general public.

As of March 2025, the first four spacecraft are providing essential tropical cyclone measurements. Next, Tomorrow.io plans to provide an unprecedented look into sub-hourly global atmospheric measurements of temperature, humidity, and precipitation to the commercial sector.

From Atlantic hurricanes to Midwest tornadoes and all the massive storm systems in between, TROPICS technology, MIT LL, and Tomorrow.io are working to ensure Americans are prepared to survive escalating and devastating major weather events.

This technology received a 2025 FLC Excellence in Technology Transfer Award. Learn more here and discover more awardees in our Awards Gallery.