Since mid-September 2022, NASA-funded instruments have been hitching rides on commercial aircraft and collecting environmental data over New Zealand. The collaboration with Air New Zealand is the first known data-collecting partnership between a passenger airline and a NASA Earth science mission. The new program is part of NASA's Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) mission, which is a constellation of eight small satellites that collect data on the intensity and direction of storms and hurricanes. Flying in low-Earth orbit above the tropics, the CYGNSS satellites were designed to measure wind speeds over the ocean by examining reflections of GPS signals from choppy and calm water surfaces.
