World's first weather monitoring rocket launched by China from an unmanned submarine

Washington, Feb 1: Scientists in China have launched a weather observation rocket from a semi-submersible drone ship in a world's first for meteorological research.

The unmanned semi-submersible vehicle (USSV) was designed specifically to deploy instruments that can hit altitudes beyond the reach of weather balloons.

The breakthrough could lead to networks of USSVs around the oceans for cheaper, more efficient data collection, the researchers say.

Dr Juni Li, co-author of the study, explained: "The unmanned semi-submersible vehicle is an ideal platform for marine meteorological environmental monitoring, and the atmospheric profile information provided by rocketsonde launched from this platform can improve the accuracy of numerical weather forecasts at sea and in coastal zones."

The team now plans to use unmanned semi-submersible vehicles to provide a network of observations at sea to extend weather data over the ocean.