NASA To Decide Rainfall Satellite’s Future This Summer

The future of NASA’s Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) — whether it will be turned off this year — is expected to be decided in the month ahead. NASA announced at the start of hurricane season last year that it planned to turn off TRMM to save fuel for an eventual deorbit burn designed to drop the satellite into an uninhabited stretch of the Pacific Ocean. NASA also said it needed to save the $4 million a year it costs to keep the satellite in service.