Joint American-Italian MAIA Mission Will Be First to Use Satellites to Focus on Public Health

A new joint mission between NASA and Italy’s space agency will seek to assess the health effects of airborne pollution in some of the world’s largest cities. The Multi-Angle Imager for Aerosols (MAIA) mission, a cooperation between NASA and its partners at the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI), marks a mission first by the space agencies with its focus on public health with a satellite effort. With aid from public health experts and other professionals, the data the mission collects will look at the health effects of contaminants in our air in the form of particles known as aerosols, which in the past have been linked to various kinds of respiratory illnesses, and even risks associated strokes, heart attacks, and impacts on reproductive health. MAIA is scheduled to launch sometime in late 2024. Read more from the DeBrief here.