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NASA NTRS1996

SIR-C Studies of the Precambrian Hamisana and Nakasib Structures, NE Sudan, in Arid Regions of Low Relief and in the Subsurface

Progress, significant results, and future plans regarding the following project objectives are presented: (a) Develop techniques for optimizing structural analysis of basement trends in arid regions with extremely subdued topography and/or thin aeolian cover. b) Apply results of (a) to map the southern extension of the Hamisana Shear Zone and the western extension of Nakasib Suture. c) Apply results of (b) to constrain the roles of terrane accretion and strike-slip re-organization for late Precambrian crustal evolution in NE Africa.

Robert J Stern↗

NASA NTRS1999

Reducing Mission Costs by Leveraging Previous Investments in Space

The Rapid Spacecraft Development Office (RSDO) at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center has been charged with the responsibility to reduce mission cost by allowing access to previous developments on government and commercial space missions. RSDO accomplishes this responsibility by implementing two revolutionary contract vehicles, the Rapid Spacecraft Acquisition (RSA) and Quick Ride. This paper will describe the concept behind these contracts, the current capabilities available to missions, analysis of pricing trends to date using the RSDO processes, and future plans to increase flexibility and capabilities available to mission planners.

Miller, Ron↗

NASA NTRS2004

Ozone Measurements and a 3D Chemical Transport Model

We have used our three-dimensional chemical transport model (CTM) to calculate the expected reponse of stratospheric composition over the past 30 years to forcing by chlorine and bromine compounds, solar ultraviolet, and volcanic aerosols. The CTM uses off-line winds and temperatures fiom a 50-year run of the finite volume general circulation model (FVGCM). We compare the total column ozone and the ozone profile fiom the CTM output to a variety of data sources. These include a merged total ozone data set from TOMS and SBUV using the new version 8 algorithm. Total ozone fiom the CTM are compared to ground-station measurements of total ozone at specific locations. Ozone profiles are compared to satellite meausrements fiom SBUV, SAGE, and HALOE. Profiles are also compared to ozonesondes over several locations. The results of the comparisons are quantified by using a time-series statistical analysis to determine trends, solar cycle, and volcanic reponse in both the model and in the data. Initial results indicate that the model responds to forcings in a way that is similar to the observed atmospheric response. The model does seem to be more sensitive to the chlorine and bromine perturbation ihan is the data. Further details and comparisons wiii be discussed.

Stolarski, Richard S.↗

NASA NTRS2005

Artificial Neural Network Test Support Development for the Space Shuttle PRCS Thrusters

A significant anomaly, Fuel Valve Pilot Seal Extrusion, is affecting the Shuttle Primary Reaction Control System (PRCS) Thrusters, and has caused 79 to fail. To help address this problem, a Shuttle PRCS Thruster Process Evaluation Team (TPET) was formed. The White Sands Test Facility (WSTF) and Boeing members of the TPET have identified many discrete valve current trace characteristics that are predictive of the problem. However, these are difficult and time consuming to identify and trend by manual analysis. Based on this exhaustive analysis over months, 22 thrusters previously delivered by the Depot were identified as high risk for flight failures. Although these had only recently been installed, they had to be removed from Shuttles OV103 and OV104 for reprocessing, by directive of the Shuttle Project Office. The resulting impact of the thruster removal, replacement, and valve replacement was significant (months of work and hundreds of thousands of dollars). Much of this could have been saved had the proposed Neural Network (NN) tool described in this paper been in place. In addition to the significant benefits to the Shuttle indicated above, the development and implementation of this type of testing will be the genesis for potential Quality improvements across many areas of WSTF test data analysis and will be shared with other NASA centers. Future tests can be designed to incorporate engineering experience via Artificial Neural Nets (ANN) into depot level acceptance of hardware. Additionally, results were shared with a NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) Super Problem Response Team (SPRT). There was extensive interest voiced among many different personnel from several centers. There are potential spin-offs of this effort that can be directly applied to other data acquisition systems as well as vehicle health management for current and future flight vehicles.

Lehr, Mark E.↗

NASA NTRS2006

Characterization of Days Based On Analysis of National Airspace System Performance Metrics

Days of operations in the National Airspace System can be described in term of traffic demand, runway conditions, equipment outages, and surface and enroute weather conditions. These causes manifest themselves in terms of departure delays, arrival delays, enroute delays and traffic flow management delays, Traffic flow management initiatives such as, ground stops, ground delay programs, miles-in-trail restrictions, rerouting and airborne holding are imposed to balance the air traffic demand with respect to the available capacity, In order to maintain operational efficiency of the National Airspace System, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) maintains delay sad other statistics in the Air Traffic Operations Network (OPSNET) and the Aviation System Performance Metrics (ASPM) databases. OPSNET data includes reportable delays of fifteen minutes ox more experienced by Instrument Flight Rule (IFR) flights. Numbers of aircraft affected by departure delays, enroute delays, arrival delays and traffic flow delays are recorded in the OPSNET data. ASPM data consist of number of actual departures, number of canceled departures, percentage of on time departures, percentage of on time gate arrivals, taxi-out delays. taxi-in delays, gate delays, arrival delays and block delays. Surface conditions at the major U.S. airports are classified in terms of Instrument Meteorological Condition (IMC) and Visual Meteorological Condition (VMC) as a function of the time of the day in the ASPM data. The main objective of this paper is to use OPSNET and ASPM data to classify the days in the datasets into few distinct groups, where each group is separated from the other groups in terms of a distance metric. The motivations for classifying the days are two-fold, 1) to enable selection of days of traffic with particular operational characteristics for concept evaluation using system-wide simulation systems such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Airspace Concepts Evaluation Tool (ACES) and 2) to enable evaluation of a given day with respect to the characteristics of the classified groups. The first part of the paper is devoted to the analysis of major trends seen in the OPSNET and ASPM data. The second part of the paper is devoted to describing features or measures derived from the OPSNET and ASPM data that are suitable for characterizing days, and the classification algorithm used for grouping the days. Finally, the method for evaluating the characteristics of a given day with respect to the properties of the groups is described.

Chatterji, Gano B.↗

NASA NTRS2007

Pixelation Effects in Weak Lensing

Weak gravitational lensing can be used to investigate both dark matter and dark energy but requires accurate measurements of the shapes of faint, distant galaxies. Such measurements are hindered by the finite resolution and pixel scale of digital cameras. We investigate the optimum choice of pixel scale for a space-based mission, using the engineering model and survey strategy of the proposed Supernova Acceleration Probe as a baseline. We do this by simulating realistic astronomical images containing a known input shear signal and then attempting to recover the signal using the Rhodes, Refregier, and Groth algorithm. We find that the quality of shear measurement is always improved by smaller pixels. However, in practice, telescopes are usually limited to a finite number of pixels and operational life span, so the total area of a survey increases with pixel size. We therefore fix the survey lifetime and the number of pixels in the focal plane while varying the pixel scale, thereby effectively varying the survey size. In a pure trade-off for image resolution versus survey area, we find that measurements of the matter power spectrum would have minimum statistical error with a pixel scale of 0.09' for a 0.14' FWHM point-spread function (PSF). The pixel scale could be increased to ~0.16' if images dithered by exactly half-pixel offsets were always available. Some of our results do depend on our adopted shape measurement method and should be regarded as an upper limit: future pipelines may require smaller pixels to overcome systematic floors not yet accessible, and, in certain circumstances, measuring the shape of the PSF might be more difficult than those of galaxies. However, the relative trends in our analysis are robust, especially those of the surface density of resolved galaxies. Our approach thus provides a snapshot of potential in available technology, and a practical counterpart to analytic studies of pixelation, which necessarily assume an idealized shape measurement method.

gravitational lensing↗

NASA NTRS2011

30 WS North Base Wind Study

The 30 Weather Squadron (30 WS) is concerned about strong winds observed at their northern towers without advance warning. They state that terrain influences along the extreme northern fringes of Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB) make it difficult for forecasters to issue timely and accurate high wind warnings for northeasterly wind events. These events tend to occur during the winter or early spring when they are under the influence of the Great Basin high pressure weather regime. The Launch Weather Officers (LWOs) have seen these rapid wind increases in the current northern Towers 60, 70 and 71 in excess of their 35 kt operational warning threshold. For this task, the 30 WS requested the Applied Meteorology Unit (AMU) analyze data from days when these towers reported winds in excess of 35 kt and determine if there were any precursors in the observations that would allow the LWOs to better forecast and warn their operational customers for these wind events. The 30 WS provided wind tower data for the cool season (October - March) from the period January 2004-March 20 IO. The AMU decoded and evaluated the wind tower data for 66 days identified by the 30 WS as having high-wind events. Out of the 66 event days, only 30 had wind speed observations of > or =35 kt from at least one of the three northern towers. The AMU analyzed surface and upper air charts to determine the synoptic conditions for each event day along with tower peak wind speed and direction time series and wind rose charts for all 30 event days. The analysis revealed a trend on all event days in which the tower winds shifted to the northeast for a period of time before the first recorded > or =35 kt wind speed. The time periods for the 30 event days ranged from 20 minutes to several hours, with a median value of 110 minutes. This trend, if monitored, could give the 30 WS forecasters a precursor to assist in issuing an operational warning before a high wind event occurs. The AMU recommends developing a high-wind alert capability for VAFB using a local mesoscale model to forecast these wind events. The model should incorporate all of the VAFB local data sets and have a forecast capability of between 2 to 24 hours. Such a model would allow the meteorologists at VAFB to alert the operational customers of high wind events in a timely manner so protective action could be taken.

Wheeler, Mark↗

NASA NTRS2012

Accuracy Assessment of Aqua-MODIS Aerosol Optical Depth Over Coastal Regions: Importance of Quality Flag and Sea Surface Wind Speed

Coastal regions around the globe are a major source for anthropogenic aerosols in the atmosphere, but the underlying surface characteristics are not favorable for the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) algorithms designed for retrieval of aerosols over dark land or open-ocean surfaces. Using data collected from 62 coastal stations worldwide from the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) from approximately 2002-2010, accuracy assessments are made for coastal aerosol optical depth (AOD) retrieved from MODIS aboard Aqua satellite. It is found that coastal AODs (at 550 nm) characterized respectively by the MODIS Dark Land (hereafter Land) surface algorithm, the Open-Ocean (hereafter Ocean) algorithm, and AERONET all exhibit a log-normal distribution. After filtering by quality flags, the MODIS AODs respectively retrieved from the Land and Ocean algorithms are highly correlated with AERONET (with R(sup 2) is approximately equal to 0.8), but only the Land algorithm AODs fall within the expected error envelope greater than 66% of the time. Furthermore, the MODIS AODs from the Land algorithm, Ocean algorithm, and combined Land and Ocean product show statistically significant discrepancies from their respective counterparts from AERONET in terms of mean, probability density function, and cumulative density function, which suggest a need for future improvement in retrieval algorithms. Without filtering with quality flag, the MODIS Land and Ocean AOD dataset can be degraded by 30-50% in terms of mean bias. Overall, the MODIS Ocean algorithm overestimates the AERONET coastal AOD by 0.021 for AOD less than 0.25 and underestimates it by 0.029 for AOD greater than 0.25. This dichotomy is shown to be related to the ocean surface wind speed and cloud contamination effects on the satellite aerosol retrieval. The Modern Era Retrospective-Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) reveals that wind speeds over the global coastal region 25 (with a mean and median value of 2.94 meters per second and 2.66 meters per second, respectively) are often slower than 6 meters per second assumed in the MODIS Ocean algorithm. As a result of high correlation (R(sup 2) greater than 0.98) between the bias in binned MODIS AOD and the corresponding binned wind speed over the coastal sea surface, an empirical scheme for correcting the bias of AOD retrieved from the MODIS Ocean algorithm is formulated and is shown to be effective over the majority of the coastal AERONET stations, and hence can be used in future analysis of AOD trend and MODIS AOD data assimilation.

Anderson, J. C.↗

NASA NTRS2014

Human Performance in Simulated Reduced Gravity Environments

NASA is currently designing a new space suit capable of working in deep space and on Mars. Designing a suit is very difficult and often requires trade‐offs between performance, cost, mass, and system complexity. Our current understanding of human performance in reduced gravity in a planetary environment (the moon or Mars) is limited to lunar observations, studies from the Apollo program, and recent suit tests conducted at JSC using reduced gravity simulators. This study will look at our most recent reduced gravity simulations performed on the new Active Response Gravity Offload System (ARGOS) compared to the C‐9 reduced gravity plane. Methods: Subjects ambulated in reduced gravity analogs to obtain a baseline for human performance. Subjects were tested in lunar gravity (1.6 m/sq s) and Earth gravity (9.8 m/sq s) in shirt‐sleeves. Subjects ambulated over ground at prescribed speeds on the ARGOS, but ambulated at a self‐selected speed on the C‐9 due to time limitations. Subjects on the ARGOS were given over 3 minutes to acclimate to the different conditions before data was collected. Nine healthy subjects were tested in the ARGOS (6 males, 3 females, 79.5 +/- 15.7 kg), while six subjects were tested on the C‐9 (6 males, 78.8 +/- 11.2 kg). Data was collected with an optical motion capture system (Vicon, Oxford, UK) and was analyzed using customized analysis scripts in BodyBuilder (Vicon, Oxford, UK) and MATLAB (MathWorks, Natick, MA, USA). Results: In all offloaded conditions, variation between subjects increased compared to 1‐g. Kinematics in the ARGOS at lunar gravity resembled earth gravity ambulation more closely than the C‐9 ambulation. Toe‐off occurred 10% earlier in both reduced gravity environments compared to earth gravity, shortening the stance phase. Likewise, ankle, knee, and hip angles remained consistently flexed and had reduced peaks compared to earth gravity. Ground reaction forces in lunar gravity (normalized to Earth body weight) were 0.4 +/- 0.2 on the ARGOS, but only 0.2 +/- 0.1 on the C‐9. Discussion: Gait analysis showed differences in joint kinematics and temporal‐spatial parameters between the reduced gravity simulators and with respect to earth gravity. Although most of the subjects chose a somewhat unique ambulation style as a result of learning to ambulate in a new environment, all but two were consistent with keeping an Earth‐like gait. Learning how reduced gravity affects ambulation will help NASA to determine optimal suit designs, influence mission planning, help train crew, and may shed light on the underlying methods the body uses to optimize gait for energetic efficiency. Conclusion: Kinematic and kinetic analysis demonstrated noteworthy differences between an offloaded environment and 1‐g, as would be expected. The analysis showed a trend to change the ambulation style in an offloaded environment to a rolling‐loping walk (resembling crosscountry skiing) with increased swing time. This ambulation modification, particularly in the ARGOS, indicated that the relative kinetic energy of the subject was increased, on average, per the static body weight compared to the 1‐g condition. How much of this was influenced by the active offloading of the ARGOS system is unknown.

Cowley, Matthew↗

NASA NTRS2015

Projections of Rapidly Rising Temperatures over Africa Under Low Mitigation

An analysis of observed trends in African annual-average near-surface temperatures over the last five decades reveals drastic increases, particularly over parts of the subtropics and central tropical Africa. Over these regions, temperatures have been rising at more than twice the global rate of temperature increase. An ensemble of high-resolution downscalings, obtained using a single regional climate model forced with the sea-surface temperatures and sea-ice fields of an ensemble of global circulation model (GCM) simulations, is shown to realistically represent the relatively strong temperature increases observed in subtropical southern and northern Africa. The amplitudes of warming are generally underestimated, however. Further warming is projected to occur during the 21st century, with plausible increases of 4-6 C over the subtropics and 3-5 C over the tropics by the end of the century relative to present-day climate under the A2 (a low mitigation) scenario of the Special Report on Emission Scenarios. High impact climate events such as heat-wave days and high fire-danger days are consistently projected to increase drastically in their frequency of occurrence. General decreases in soil-moisture availability are projected, even for regions where increases in rainfall are plausible, due to enhanced levels of evaporation. The regional downscalings presented here, and recent GCM projections obtained for Africa, indicate that African annual-averaged temperatures may plausibly rise at about 1.5 times the global rate of temperature increase in the subtropics, and at a somewhat lower rate in the tropics. These projected increases although drastic, may be conservative given the model underestimations of observed temperature trends. The relatively strong rate of warming over Africa, in combination with the associated increases in extreme temperature events, may be key factors to consider when interpreting the suitability of global mitigation targets in terms of African climate change and climate change adaptation in Africa.

climate change↗

NASA NTRS2016

Statistical Analysis of Deflation in Covariance and Resultant Pc Values for AQUA, AURA and TERRA

This presentation will display statistical analysis performed for raw conjunction CDMs received for the EOS Aqua, Aura and Terra satellites within the period of February 2015 through July 2016. The analysis performed indicates a discernable deflation in covariance calculated at the JSpOC after the utilization of the dynamic drag consider parameter was implemented operationally in May 2015. As a result, the overall diminution in the conjunction plane intersection of the primary and secondary objects appears to be leading to reduced probability of collision (Pc) values for these conjunction events. This presentation also displays evidence for this theory with analysis of Pc trending plots using data calculated by the SpaceNav CRMS system.

raw conjunction↗

NASA NTRS2018

Mega-Drivers to Inform NASA Space Technology Strategic Planning

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) has been developing a new Strategic Framework to guide investment prioritization and communication of STMD strategic goals to stakeholders. STMD’s analysis of global trends identified four overarching drivers which are anticipated to shape the needs of civilian space research for years to come. These Mega-Drivers form the foundation of the Strategic Framework. The Increasing Access Mega-Driver reflects the increase in the availability of launch options, more capable propulsion systems, access to planetary surfaces, and the introduction of new platforms to enable exploration, science, and commercial activities. Accelerating Pace of Discovery reflects the exploration of more remote and challenging destinations, drives increased demand for improved abilities to communicate and process large datasets. The Democratization of Space reflects the broadening participation in the space industry, from governments to private investors to citizens. Growing Utilization of Space reflects space market diversification and growth. This paper will further describe the observable trends that inform each of these Mega Drivers, as well as the interrelationships between them within STMD’s new Strategic Framework.

Grande, Melanie L.↗

NASA NTRS2018

Mega-Drivers to Inform NASA Space Technology Strategic Planning

Melanie L Grande↗

NASA NTRS2021

Spectrophotometric Modeling and Mapping of (101955) Bennu

Using hyperspectral data collected by OVIRS, the visible and infrared spectrometer onboard the OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security–Regolith Explorer) spacecraft, we modeled the global average spectrophotometric properties of the carbonaceous asteroid (101955) Bennu and mapped their variations. We restricted our analysis to 0.4–2.5 µm to avoid the wavelengths where thermal emission from the asteroid dominates (>2.5 µm). Bennu has global photometric properties typical of dark asteroids; we found a geometric albedo of 0.046 ± 0.007 and a linear phase slope of 0.024 ± 0.007 mag deg–1 at 0.55 µm. The average spectral slope of Bennu’s normal albedo is –0.0030 µm–1, and the phase reddening parameter is 4.3´10–4 µm–1 deg–1, both over the spectral range of 0.5–2.0 µm. We produced normal albedo maps and phase slope maps at all spectral channels, from which we derived spectral slope and phase reddening maps. Correlation analysis suggests that phase slope variations on Bennu are likely due to photometric roughness variation. A correlation between photometric roughness and thermal roughness is evident, implying that the roughness of Bennu is self-similar on scales from tens of microns to meters. Our analysis reveals latitudinal trends in the spectral color slope and phase reddening on Bennu. The equatorial region appears to be redder than the global average, and the spectral slope decreases towards higher latitudes. Phase reddening on Bennu is relatively weak in the equatorial region and shows an asymmetry between the northern and southern hemispheres. We attributed the latitudinal trend to the geophysical conditions on Bennu that result in a global pattern of mass flow towards the equator.

Jian-Yang Li (李荐扬)↗

NASA NTRS2022

Idaho Wildfires II: Assessing the Relationship Between Drought Indicators and Wildfire Risk to Enhance Hazard Modeling and Inform Mitigation Planning

The western United States has experienced twenty years of increased and prolonged drought which have exacerbated wildfire hazards. These jeopardize population centers through increased risks to ecosystem services, local economies, and livelihoods. The Idaho Office of Emergency Management, Water Resources, and Department of Lands are seeking methods to dynamically monitor these conditions and update models that inform hazard mitigation planning and resource allocation. Towards this, these agencies partnered with NASA DEVELOP to produce drought-enhanced wildfire hazard models. Part of a two-term project, the two teams revised the state’s static wildfire hazard model with refined data layers and remotely-sensed data to reflect dynamic ecosystem responses to drought conditions and wildfire potential. Our team distinguished between rangeland and forestland ecosystems, and investigated relationships between drought metrics and vegetation condition using TerrSet Earth Trends Modeler. This analysis determined that total precipitation at a 5-month lag interval (r 2 = 0.72) along with the Evaporative Stress Index (r 2 = 0.69); and precipitation at a 5-month interval (r 2 = 0.42) were important drivers in rangeland and forestland, respectively. These driver variables were incorporated into a temporally dynamic wildfire hazard map. Our team used linear regression to correlate hazard ratings with wildfire frequency. For the year 2020, neither the enhanced hazard model (p < 0.10, r 2 = 0.01) nor the state’s static model (p < 0.05, r 2 = 0.03) were strongly correlated with actual wildfire frequency as they expressed an inverse relationship between wildfire hazard and frequency. This suggests wildfire occurrence is complex and not necessarily driven by the variables used.

Wildfire↗

NASA NTRS2001

An Analysis of Simulated and Observed Global Mean Near-Surface Air Temperature Anomalies from 1979 to 1999: Trends and Attribution of Causes

The 1979 - 1999 response of the climate system to variations in solar spectral irradiance is estimated by comparing the global averaged surface temperature anomalies simulated by a 2D (two dimensional) energy balance climate model to observed temperature anomalies. We perform a multiple regression of southern oscillation index and the individual model responses to solar irradiance variations, stratospheric and tropospheric aerosol loading, stratospheric ozone trends, and greenhouse gases onto each of five near-surface temperature anomaly data sets. We estimate the observed difference in global mean near surface air temperature attributable to the solar irradiance difference between solar maximum and solar minimum to be between 0.06 and 0.11 K, and that 1.1 - 3.8% of the total variance in monthly mean near-surface air temperature data is attributable to nations in solar spectral irradiance. For the five temperature data sets used in our analysis, the trends in raw monthly mean temperature anomaly data have a large range, spanning a factor of 3 from 0.06 to 0.17 K/decade. However. our analysis suggests that trends in monthly temperature anomalies attributable to the combination of greenhouse gas, stratospheric ozone, and tropospheric sulfate aerosol variations are much more consistent among data sets, ranging from 0.16 to 0.24 K/decade. Our model results suggest that roughly half of the warming from greenhouse gases is cancelled by the cooling from changes in stratospheric ozone. Tropospheric sulfate aerosol loading in the present day atmospheric contributes significantly to the net radiative forcing of the present day climate system. However, because the change in magnitude and latitudinal distribution of tropospheric sulfate aerosol has been small over the past 20 years, the change in the direct radiative forcing attributable to changes in aerosol loading over this time is also small.

MacKay, R. M.↗

NASA NTRS2011

Telemetry and Science Data Software System

The Telemetry and Science Data Software System (TSDSS) was designed to validate the operational health of a spacecraft, ease test verification, assist in debugging system anomalies, and provide trending data and advanced science analysis. In doing so, the system parses, processes, and organizes raw data from the Aquarius instrument both on the ground and while in space. In addition, it provides a user-friendly telemetry viewer, and an instant pushbutton test report generator. Existing ground data systems can parse and provide simple data processing, but have limitations in advanced science analysis and instant report generation. The TSDSS functions as an offline data analysis system during I&T (integration and test) and mission operations phases. After raw data are downloaded from an instrument, TSDSS ingests the data files, parses, converts telemetry to engineering units, and applies advanced algorithms to produce science level 0, 1, and 2 data products. Meanwhile, it automatically schedules upload of the raw data to a remote server and archives all intermediate and final values in a MySQL database in time order. All data saved in the system can be straightforwardly retrieved, exported, and migrated. Using TSDSS s interactive data visualization tool, a user can conveniently choose any combination and mathematical computation of interesting telemetry points from a large range of time periods (life cycle of mission ground data and mission operations testing), and display a graphical and statistical view of the data. With this graphical user interface (GUI), the data queried graphs can be exported and saved in multiple formats. This GUI is especially useful in trending data analysis, debugging anomalies, and advanced data analysis. At the request of the user, mission-specific instrument performance assessment reports can be generated with a simple click of a button on the GUI. From instrument level to observatory level, the TSDSS has been operating supporting functional and performance tests and refining system calibration algorithms and coefficients, in sync with the Aquarius/SAC-D spacecraft. At the time of this reporting, it was prepared and set up to perform anomaly investigation for mission operations preceding the Aquarius/SAC-D spacecraft launch on June 10, 2011.

Bates, Lakesha↗

NASA NTRS2014

Thermal Infrared Remote Sensing for Analysis of Landscape Ecological Processes: Current Insights and Trends

NASA or NOAA Earth-observing satellites are not the only space-based TIR platforms. The European Space Agency (ESA), the Chinese, and other countries have in orbit or plan to launch TIR remote sensing systems. Satellite remote sensing provides an excellent opportunity to study land-atmosphere energy exchanges at the regional scale. A predominant application of TIR data has been in inferring evaporation, evapotranspiration (ET), and soil moisture. In addition to using TIR data for ET and soil moisture analysis over vegetated surfaces, there is also a need for using these data for assessment of drought conditions. The concept of ecological thermodynamics provides a quantification of surface energy fluxes for landscape characterization in relation to the overall amount of energy input and output from specific land cover types.

Quattrochi, Dale A.↗