NASA's Lightning Imaging Sensor, an advanced, space-based instrument for monitoring lightning in a broad region around the globe, is in orbit and appears to be working as expected, its developers and members of the science team say.

The sensor was launched last Friday morning at 6:27 a.m. JST (3:27 p.m. CST on Nov. 27) on an H-II rocket from the Tanegashima Space Center in Tanegashima, Japan, aboard the joint NASA and Japanese Space Agency's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission.

It was activated over the weekend, and -- based on analysis of its initial data -- is in good health, according to engineers and scientists in Huntsville, Ala., at the Marshall Space Flight Center and the Global Hydrology and Climate Center.

Activated one day earlier than planned, the lightning sensor began to fulfill its scientific goal to detect lightning strikes and severe storms, and locate lightning, over the tropical region of the globe -- the zone 35 degrees above and 35 degrees below the equator.

The Lightning Imaging Sensor is a scientific payload aboard the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission -- a project dedicated to studying the properties of tropical and subtropical rainfall. Managed by Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., the project is part NASA's Mission to Planet Earth enterprise, a long-term, coordinated research effort to study the total Earth system and the effects of natural and human-induced changes on the global environment.

Aboard the satellite, the lightning sensor is helping to pave the way for a future space-based lightning mapper that could deliver day and night lightning information to a forecaster's workstation within 30 seconds of occurrence -- providing an invaluable tool for storm "nowcasting" and giving people more advance warning of severe storms.

"After the satellite was deployed, its check-out went so well, we went ahead and activated the lightning sensor on Friday," said the project manager, Roger Chassay of the Marshall Center. "All of the preliminary engineering data we've gotten so far have been outstanding."

"We got our first indication that the sensor was operating as expected mid-morning on Saturday, Nov. 29, when we received data that the sensor had detected a thunderstorm," said the experiment's principal investigator, Dr. Hugh Christian of the Marshall Center.

"The Lightning Imaging Sensor team is excited to have the sensor up and running, and is elated about the success of everything so far," said Chassay.

The sensor is expected to be in operation for three years, collecting data on the worldwide distribution of lightning. The data will be transmitted on a daily basis to a ground station in White Sands, N.M., then to Goddard Center. Goddard will transmit the data to the Global Hydrology and Climate Center in Huntsville for analysis.

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