Engineering topics
Ungar, Stephen
Publications and source records attributed to Ungar, Stephen.
Flight validation of instrument processing onboard Earth Observing One: a status report
UNKNOWN
Hyperion Detection and Characterization of the Aliso Canyon Event
No abstract available
The HYSPIRI Decadal Survey Mission: Update on the Mission Concept and Science Objectives for Global Imaging Spectroscopy and Multi-Spectral Thermal Measurements
The NASA HyspIRI mission is planned to provide global solar reflected energy spectroscopic measurement of the terrestrial and shallow water regions of the Earth every 19 days will all measurements downlinked. In addition, HyspIRI will provide multi-spectral thermal measurements with a single band in the 4 micron region and seven bands in the 8 to 12 micron region with 5 day day/night coverage. A direct broadcast capability for measurement subsets is also planned. This HyspIRI mission is one of those designated in the 2007 National Research Council (NRC) Decadal Survey: Earth Science and Applications from Space. In the Decadal Survey, HyspIRI was recognized as relevant to a range of Earth science and science applications, including climate: "A hyperspectral sensor (e.g., FLORA) combined with a multispectral thermal sensor (e.g., SAVII) in low Earth orbit (LEO) is part of an integrated mission concept [described in Parts I and II] that is relevant to several panels, especially the climate variability panel." The HyspIRI science study group was formed in 2008 to evaluate and refine the mission concept. This group has developed a series of HyspIRI science objectives: (1) Climate: Ecosystem biochemistry, condition & feedback; spectral albedo; carbon/dust on snow/ice; biomass burning; evapotranspiration (2) Ecosystems: Global plant functional types, physiological condition, and biochemistry including agricultural lands (3) Fires: Fuel status, fire frequency, severity, emissions, and patterns of recovery globally (4) Coral reef and coastal habitats: Global composition and status (5) Volcanoes: Eruptions, emissions, regional and global impact (6) Geology and resources: Global distributions of surface mineral resources and improved understanding of geology and related hazards These objectives are achieved with the following measurement capabilities. The HyspIRI imaging spectrometer provides: full spectral coverage from 380 to 2500 at 10 nm sampling; 60 m spatial sampling with a 150 km swath; and fully downlinked coverage of the Earth's terrestrial and shallow water regions every 19 days to provide seasonal cloud-free coverage of the terrestrial surface. The HyspIRI Multi-Spectral Thermal instrument provides: 8 spectral bands from 4 to 12 microns; 60 m spatial sampling with a 600 km swath; and fully downlinked coverage of the Earth's terrestrial shallow water regions every 5 days (day/night) to provide nominally cloud-free monthly coverage. The HyspIRI mission also includes an on-board processing and direct broadcast capability, referred to as the Intelligent Payload Module (IPM), which will allow users with the appropriate antenna to download a subset of the HyspIRI data stream to a local ground station. These science and science application objectives are critical today and uniquely addressed by the combined imaging spectroscopy, thermal infrared measurements, and IPM direct broadcast capability of HyspIRI. Two key objectives are: (1) The global HyspIRI spectroscopic measurements of the terrestrial biosphere including vegetation composition and function to constrain and reduce the uncertainty in climate-carbon interactions and terrestrial biosphere feedback. (2) The global 8 band thermal measurements to provide improved constraint of fire related emissions. In this paper the current HyspIRI mission concept that has been reviewed and refined to its current level of maturity with a Data Products Symposium, Science Workshop and NASA HWorkshop is presented including traceability between the measurements and the science and science application objectives.
Use of the Earth Observing One (EO-1) Satellite for the Namibia SensorWeb Flood Early Warning Pilot
The Earth Observing One (EO-1) satellite was launched in November 2000 as a one year technology demonstration mission for a variety of space technologies. After the first year, it was used as a pathfinder for the creation of SensorWebs. A SensorWeb is the integration of variety of space, airborne and ground sensors into a loosely coupled collaborative sensor system that automatically provides useful data products. Typically, a SensorWeb is comprised of heterogeneous sensors tied together with a messaging architecture and web services. Disasters are the perfect arena to use SensorWebs. One SensorWeb pilot project that has been active since 2009 is the Namibia Early Flood Warning SensorWeb pilot project. The Pilot Project was established under the auspices of the Namibian Ministry of Agriculture Water and Forestry (MAWF)/Department of Water Affairs, the Committee on Earth Observing Satellites (CEOS)/Working Group on Information Systems and Services (WGISS) and moderated by the United Nations Platform for Space-based Information for Disaster Management and Emergency Response (UN-SPIDER). The effort began by identifying and prototyping technologies which enabled the rapid gathering and dissemination of both space-based and ground sensor data and data products for the purpose of flood disaster management and water-borne disease management. This was followed by an international collaboration to build small portions of the identified system which was prototyped during that past few years during the flood seasons which occurred in the February through May timeframe of 2010 and 2011 with further prototyping to occur in 2012. The SensorWeb system features EO-1 data along with other data sets from such satellites as Radarsat, Terra and Aqua. Finally, the SensorWeb team also began to examine the socioeconomic component to determine the impact of the SensorWeb technology and how best to assist in the infusion of this technology in lesser affluent areas with low levels of basic infrastructure. This paper provides an overview of these efforts, highlighting the EO-1 usage in this SensorWeb.
Sensor Webs with a Service-Oriented Architecture for On-demand Science Products
This paper describes the work being managed by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) Information System Division (ISD) under a NASA Earth Science Technology Ofice (ESTO) Advanced Information System Technology (AIST) grant to develop a modular sensor web architecture which enables discovery of sensors and workflows that can create customized science via a high-level service-oriented architecture based on Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) web service standards. These capabilities serve as a prototype to a user-centric architecture for Global Earth Observing System of Systems (GEOSS). This work builds and extends previous sensor web efforts conducted at NASA/GSFC using the Earth Observing 1 (EO-1) satellite and other low-earth orbiting satellites.
The CEOS/GEO Constellation Concept
The Constellation concept was first proposed during a discussion at the 19th CEOS Plenary, in London, in November 2005. The first Paper of the Constellation Concept was presented at the CEOS Strategic Implementation Team meeting (SIT-18), in Frascati, in March 2006, and strongly endorsed by the CEOS Principals. The concept attempts to provide agencies with tools for implementation of the elements that have been previously discussed in international forums (GEO Work Plan, GCOS Implementation Plan). This provides a solid foundation from the community providing requirements. Though agency spending is governed by national requirements, CEOS seeks synergies among member agency programs to fulfil GEOSS requirements, defining guidelines and standards to help agencies to determine from the outset what can be achieved. The constellations concept will allow the development of a commonalties approach among different agencies. At the heart of the application of the Constellations concept is the definition of a series of standards (specific to each Constellation) - required to be satisfied for any mission to be included in the constellation - and a process of recognition/acceptance, whereby an agency applies to SIT to have one or more of its missions (ideally from the outset of planning) recognised as meeting the constellation standards and thereby satisfying the relevant user community needs.
Status of Current and Future Remote Sensing with EO-1 Hyperion
The Earth Observing-One (EO-1) satellite, launched in November of 2000, will complete six full years of operation near the end of this year. Observations from the Hyperion Imaging Spectrometer on board EO-1 have contributed to over 300 papers in refereed journals, conference proceeds and other presentations. Hyperion has been used to study a variety of natural and anthropogenic phenomena including hazards and catastrophes, agricultural health and productivity, ecological disturbance/development, and land use/land cover change. As an example, Hyperion has been used in hazard and catastrophe studies to monitor and assess effects of tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, mudslides, tornadoes, hurricanes, wild-fires (natural and human ignited), oil spills, and the aftermath of world trade center bombing. This presentation summarizes the current status of EO-1 Hyperion in terms of key scientific findings to date and future plans for operation of this instrument through 2007.
Flora: A Proposed Hyperspectral Mission
In early 2004, one of the authors (Stephen Ungar, NASA GSFC) presented a mission concept called "Spectrasat" at the AVIRIS Workshop in Pasadena, CA. This mission concept grew out of the lessons learned from the Earth Observing-One (EO-1) Hyperion Imaging Spectrometer and was structured to more effectively accomplish the types of studies conducted with Hyperion. The Spectrasat concept represented an evolution of the technologies and operation strategies employed on EO-I. The Spectrasat concept had been preceded by two community-based missions proposed by Susan Ustin, UC Davis and Robert Green, NASA JPL. As a result of community participation, starting at this AVIRIS Workshop, the Spectrasat proposal evolved into the Flora concept which now represents the combined visions of Gregory Asner (Carnegie Institute), Stephen Ungar, Robert Green and Robert Knox, NASA GSFC. Flora is a proposed imaging spectrometer mission, designed to address global carbon cycle science issues. This mission centers on measuring ecological disturbance for purposes of ascertaining changes in global carbon stocks and draws heavily on experience gained through AVIRIS airborne flights and Hyperion space born flights. The observing strategy exploits the improved ability of imaging spectrometers, as compared with multi-spectral observing systems, to identify vegetation functional groups, detect ecosystem response to disturbance and assess the related discovery. Flora will be placed in a sun synchronous orbit, with a 45 meter pixel size, a 90 km swath width and a 31 day repeat cycle. It covers the spectral range from 0.4 to 2.5 micrometers with a spectral sampling interval of 10 nm. These specifications meet the needs of the Flora science team under the leadership of Gregory Asner. Robert Green, has introduced a spectrometer design for Flora which is expected to have a SNR of 600: 1 in the VNIR and 450: 1 in the SWIR. The mission team at NASA GSFC is designing an Intelligent Payload Module (IPM) designed to effectively reduce the volume of data required to be transmitted down to the ground. This paper discusses mission science objectives, describes the mission concept and presents the current status of possible funding opportunities leading to realization of the mission.
Science Measurement Requirements for Imaging Spectrometers from Airborne to Spaceborne
This slide presentation reviews the objectives of the work to create imaging spectrometers. The science objectives are to remotely determine the properties of the surface and atmosphere (physics, chemistry and biology) revealed by the interaction of electromagnetic energy with matter via spectroscopy. It presents a review the understanding of spectral, radiometric and spatial science measurement requirements for imaging spectrometers based upon science research results from past and current airborne and spaceborne instruments. It also examines the future requirements that will enable the next level of imaging spectroscopy science.
An autonomous Earth observing sensorweb
We describe a network of sensors linked by software and the internet to an autonomous satellite observation response capability.
Onboard Autonomy on the Earth Observing One Mission
The Earth Observing One Spacecraft is currently flying The Autonomous Sciencecraft Experiment (ASE) - onboard autonomy software to improve science return. The ASE software enables the spacecraft to autonomously detect and respond to science events occurring on the Earth. ASE includes software systems that perform science data analysis, mission planning, and run-time robust execution. In this article we describe the autonomy flight software and how it enables a new paradigm of autonomous science and mission operations.
The EO-1 Autonomous Science Agent Architecture
An Autonomous Science Agent is currently flying onboard the Earth Observing One Spacecraft. This software enables the spacecraft to autonomously detect and respond to science events occurring on the Earth. The package includes software systems that perform science data analysis, deliberative planning, and run-time robust execution. Because of the deployment to a remote spacecraft, this Autonomous Science Agent has stringent constraints of autonomy, reliability, and limited computing resources. We describe these constraints and how they are reflected in our agent architecture.
Using automated planning for sensorweb response
This paper describes efforts to link these science event detection systems with an automated response system to retarget remote sensing assets to observe these important but transient science events. Of course, automated mission planning is a key element of the overall tracking and response system. We describe the current prototype system which utilizes the Earth Observing One spacecraft, MODIS flying on Terra and Aqua, QuickSCAT, GOES, and AVHRR platforms as well as future plans for expansion.
BOREAS Level-1B MAS Imagery At-sensor Radiance, Relative X and Y Coordinates
For BOReal Ecosystem-Atmosphere Study (BOREAS), the MODIS Airborne Simulator (MAS) images, along with the other remotely sensed data, were collected to provide spatially extensive information over the primary study areas. This information includes detailed land cover and biophysical parameter maps such as fraction of Photosynthetically Active Radiation (fPAR) and Leaf Area Index (LAI). Collection of the MAS images occurred over the study areas during the 1994 field campaigns. The level-1b MAS data cover the dates of 21-Jul-1994, 24-Jul-1994, 04-Aug-1994, and 08-Aug-1994. The data are not geographically/geometrically corrected; however, files of relative X and Y coordinates for each image pixel were derived by using the C-130 INS data in a MAS scan model. The data are provided in binary image format files.