[Back to Detailed Agenda]
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| Chairs: Scott Ollinger, Dar Roberts
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Discussion Questions:
- What are the Terrestrial Ecology, Biodiversity, and Applied Sciences community's current and future needs for suborbital observations?
- Recognizing that the NASA suborbital science program is evolving and that repeated attempts to secure new funds for new airborne sensors have failed, how should our community respond/adapt/adjust?
- What are the Terrestrial Ecology, Biodiversity, and Applied Sciences needs for unpiloted aerial vehicles (UAVs)? How should we take advantage of current investments in UAV technology?
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--- Please forward any additional comments to the relevant Program Manager at NASA Headquarters. ---
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There was a following off-line discussion in the hall:
Tom Maiersperger, Dar Robert, Rob Green, Jaime Nickeson, and Jeff Morisette
Jim Green said he would be happy for AVIRIS data to be distributed open from some other source (such as the EOS Core Sites or the LP DAAC/USGS). Tom indicated he would be will willing to explore if/how AVIRIS data could be hosted and distributed at the LP DAAC. The AVIRIS data from 2006 and beyond will have ortho correction and the algorithm to convert from radiance to surface reflectance is fairly well established. There are some ortho corrected, derived products from before 2006 for some specific projects. It was decided that a good pilot project would be for LP DAAC to consider hosting some AVIRIS data as a “special collection”. Some focus AVIRIS data that will be considered are:
1) project that have ortho-corrected data and higher order products
2) any/all of the 2006 data (which are ortho-corrected)
3) acquisitions over EOS Land Validation Core Sites
The five participants agreed to stay in touch to move forward with consideration of this pilot study. ORNL should also be included in the discussion, given Dar's comments that they are also interested in hosting airborne data.
– submitted by Jeffrey (Jeff) Morisette at 2006-08-24 16:31:10 |
Small UAVs will push minituarization of instruments and have a postive impact on the TE community and provide more flexibility for platforms. High altitude UAVs are key to Mission Readiness for new satellite sensors. But it will be years before they can be used in civilian airspace for ecological studies so continuing manned airplanes is essential to the TE program. Also, costs are many times cost of small airplanes so it is not economically realistic in most cases to use UAVs. However, model planes (in the 6-12 ft wingspan class) offer new opportunities for field experiments and scaling activities (and avoid the FAA and cost issues).
– submitted by Susan Ustin at 2006-08-24 14:58:13 |
In the plenary report, this group suggested that a data center (DAAC) be identified to distribute airborne data.
The ORNL DAAC proposes to acquire, archive, and distribute airborne data, pending approval by the ORNL DAAC's User Working group and our NASA sponsors. Currently, the ORNL DAAC distributes airborne data from the BOREAS and SAFARI 2000 field campaigns.
In addition, the ORNL DAAC proposes to archive AVIRIS data acquired over the EOS Land Validation sites (from a suggestion in Jeff Morisette's comment on this discussion group).
– submitted by Robert (Bob) Cook at 2006-08-24 11:33:14 |
Regarding the report back from the break-out, having a DAAC responsible for access and distribution of airborne data seems like a great idea. For example, AVIRIS data have been acquired over several EOS Land Validation Core Sites. Yet, use of these data have been limited because there is no DAAC (or other entity) providing free, open access, to a consistent AVIRIS product.
– submitted by Jeffrey (Jeff) Morisette at 2006-08-24 09:16:11 |
I would add the the importance of suborbital/aircraft platforms the notion of calibration of satellite data sets, both of L1 and higher level products. Example: LVIS/SRTM integration.
– submitted by Josef Kellndorfer at 2006-08-24 08:41:06 |
# What are the Terrestrial Ecology, Biodiversity, and Applied Sciences community's current and future needs for suborbital observations?
One of the key sets of data requiring suborbital assests is the optimization of lidar/radar combinations for 3d structure and biomass.
In particular lidar coupled with
P-band polarimetric radars
P-band polarimetric-interferometry (single-pass)
L-band polarimetric-interferometry (single-pass)
P-band polarimetric-interferometry (repeat-pass)
L-band polarimetric-interferometry (repeat-pass)
L-band/P-band (other frequencies) multi-baseline
# Recognizing that the NASA suborbital science program is evolving and that repeated attempts to secure new funds for new airborne sensors have failed, how should our community respond/adapt/adjust?
Perhaps, the best mechanism would be for coordinated IIP activties designed to develop new or specialized instruments.
# What are the Terrestrial Ecology, Biodiversity, and Applied Sciences needs for unpiloted aerial vehicles (UAVs)? How should we take advantage of current investments in UAV technology?
UAV's have much promise for TE, BD and ASP in the future, however it will be at least 10 tens before these sensors will have routine access
to the national airspace. Therefore, we must maintain access to conventional platforms of various capabilities to support instrument and targted observations supporting science and applications for at least another decade (and probably longer).
– submitted by Scott Hensley at 2006-08-22 14:31:13 |
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