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At least 37 records · Page 2

An evaluation of the signature extension approach to large area crop inventories utilizing space image data

The author has identified the following significant results. Two examples of haze correction algorithms were tested: CROP-A and XSTAR. The CROP-A was tested in a unitemporal mode on data collected in 1973-74 over ten sample segments in Kansas. Because of the uniformly low level of haze present in these segments, no conclusion could be reached about CROP-A's ability to compensate for haze. It was noted, however, that in some cases CROP-A made serious errors which actually degraded classification performance. The haze correction algorithm XSTAR was tested in a multitemporal mode on 1975-76 LACIE sample segment data over 23 blind sites in Kansas and 18 sample segments in North Dakota, providing wide range of haze levels and other conditions for algorithm evaluation. It was found that this algorithm substantially improved signature extension classification accuracy when a sum-of-likelihoods classifier was used with an alien rejection threshold.

Nalepka, R. F.

Space images of the future - Landsat-C and Thematic Mapper

The article discusses the five-channel multispectral scanner and the panchromatic forty-meter-resolution return-beam vidicon cameras designed for Landsat C. The thematic mapper device, a second-generation multispectral scanner employing six channels and thirty-meter resolutions which is presently planned by NASA, is also described. Brief attention is given to the heat capacity mapper, coastal zone color scanner, and Seasat synthetic aperture radar.

Stoney, W. E.

Geobase Information System Impacts on Space Image Formats

As Geobase Information Systems increase in number, size and complexity, the format compatability of satellite remote sensing data becomes increasingly more important. Because of the vast and continually increasing quantity of data available from remote sensing systems the utility of these data is increasingly dependent on the degree to which their formats facilitate, or hinder, their incorporation into Geobase Information Systems. To merge satellite data into a geobase system requires that they both have a compatible geographic referencing system. Greater acceptance of satellite data by the user community will be facilitated if the data are in a form which most readily corresponds to existing geobase data structures. The conference addressed a number of specific topics and made recommendations.

Simonett, D. S.

An advanced imaging space telescope concept

This paper describes the results of a recent study of possible configurations for a next-generation optical space telescope with order-of-magnitude improvements over the Hubble Space Telescope. Overall configuration characteristics including optical performance, weights, and dimensions are given. Launch vehicle packaging concepts are described, and a scenario for orbital assembly developed. Finally, an assessment of technology readiness is provided.

Krim, Michael H.

Holographic Storage as a Solution to Space Imaging Requirements

The data growth experienced in the recent past has been of staggering proportions. Over the past 10 years, tape data storage density (with the same form factor) has increased according to Moore's law, doubling every 18 months. However, during the same period, data transfer speeds have only increased at a rate of about 1.3 times every 18 months, and thus have fallen behind data density growth rates by a factor of at least 3. Coupled with data media density growth, data storage requirements have gone up significantly. According to a recent Computer Technology Review article (March 1998) the total storage at a typical Fortune 1000 site is projected to escalate from just 10 TB in 1997 to 1 PB by the year 2000. In the next 5 years, a typical large database system for U.S. government agencies is expected to accept 5 TB per day, maintain 300 TB on-line (within 15 seconds to 1 minute access time), and archive from 15 to 100 PB. Additionally, data intensive programs such as NASA's Earth Observation System (EOS) and the intelligence data archival systems at the Rome Air Development Center, and scientific laboratories such as Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility will have enormously large scientific databases with very large storage requirements.

Halem, Milton

Advanced Imaging for Space Science

Future NASA interferometric missions will realize high-resolution with less mass and volume compared to filled-apertures thus saving in cost over comparable filled-aperture systems. However, interferometeric aperture systems give reduced sensitivity requiring longer integration times to achieve a desired signal-to-noise ratio but is likely the only cost effective path forward for high-resolution space imaging.

Lyon, Richard G.

The simulated space proton environment for radiation effects on Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS)

The space telescope imaging spectrograph (STIS) is a second generation instrument planned for the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) which is currently in orbit. Candidate glasses and other transmitting materials are being considered for order sorters, in-flight calibration filters, detector windows, and calibration lamps. The glasses for in-flight calibration filters showed significant drop in UV transmission, but can probably still be used on STIS. The addressed topics include the Hubble radiation environment, simulation of orbital exposure at Harvard Cyclotron Laboratory, measurement of spectral transmission, and comments on individual samples.

Becher, Jacob

Efficient Mosaicking of Spitzer Space Telescope Images

A parallel version of the MOPEX software, which generates mosaics of infrared astronomical images acquired by the Spitzer Space Telescope, extends the capabilities of the prior serial version. In the parallel version, both the input image space and the output mosaic space are divided among the available parallel processors. This is the only software that performs the point-source detection and the rejection of spurious imaging effects of cosmic rays required by Spitzer scientists. This software includes components that implement outlier-detection algorithms that can be fine-tuned for a particular set of image data by use of a number of adjustable parameters. This software has been used to construct a mosaic of the Spitzer Infrared Array Camera Shallow Survey, which comprises more than 17,000 exposures in four wavelength bands from 3.6 to 8 m and spans a solid angle of about 9 square degrees. When this software was executed on 32 nodes of the 1,024-processor Cosmos cluster computer at NASA s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a speedup of 8.3 was achieved over the serial version of MOPEX. The performance is expected to improve dramatically once a true parallel file system is installed on Cosmos.

Jacob, Joseph

Applications review for a Space Program Imaging Radar (SPIR)

The needs, applications, user support, research, and theoretical studies of imaging radar are reviewed. The applications of radar in water resources, minerals and petroleum exploration, vegetation resources, ocean radar imaging, and cartography are discussed. The advantages of space imaging radar are presented, and it is recommended that imaging radar be placed on the space shuttle.

Simonett, D. S.

Photogrammetry of the solar aureole

This paper presents a photogrammetric analysis of the solar aureole for the purpose of making photographic sky radiance measurements for determining aerosol physical characteristics. A photograph is essentially a projection of a 3-D object space onto a 2-D image space. Photogrammetry deals with relations that exist between the object and the image spaces. The main problem of photogrammetry is the reconstruction of configurations in the object space by means of the image space data. It is shown that the almucantar projects onto the photographic plane as a conic section and the sun vertical as a straight line.

Deepak, A.

The Space Telescope imaging spectrograph

Preliminary performance goals for the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS), selected by NASA for definition study as a second generation instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) are outlined. The STIS is a 2-dimensional spectrograph that will operate from 1050A-11000A at the limiting HST spatial resolution of 0.05 arcsec FWHM, with spectral resolutions of 100, 1200, 20,000, and 100,000 and a maximum field-of-view of 50X50 arcsec. Its basic operating modes include echelle mode (like IUE), long slit mode (for simultaneous spectra at 1000 positions on the target), slitless spectrograph mode, coronographic spectroscopy, photon time-tagging, and direct imaging.

Gull, Theodore R.

Ghost Imaging of Space Objects

would like to summarize that our "Ghost Imaging of Space Objects" NIAC research effort was successful. As anticipated, its main return has been the newly acquired knowledge and the understanding of the pathways that lead from this knowledge to its applications in observational astronomy. During this research we came across several fundamental insights that were not expected at the beginning. We came to realize that the ghost imaging of dark objects using background thermal light can be treated as a special case of Hanbury Brown and Twiss intensity interferometry in combination with the Babinet's principle for higher-order observables. Extensive recent work performed in this field by other research groups worldwide might seem to detract from the conceptual originality and novelty of our approach; but at the same time it serves as an encouraging indication that the chosen approach is acknowledged in the broader science community as promising. This newly found synergy, acknowledged in the CTA newsletter from May 2014 reporting on the Workshop on Hanbury Brown and Twiss interferometry in Nice, makes us confident that our published and otherwise disseminated results will be integrated into a larger-scale on-going research effort aimed at performing astronomy observations of both bright and dark objects with unparalleled resolution. While we are satisfied with acceptance of our results by the international research community as a contribution to the field of intensity interferometry as well as to the on-going mission-oriented projects, we also have been aiming at receiving support to continue and advance this research at JPL. Several proposals have been submitted in pursuit of this goal. Three of them are still under consideration, and we expect to learn about the funding decisions soon. These new projects would leverage the results of this NIAC study and extend it along well-defined directions that have been discussed above. Shifting the main paradigm of our approach towards intensity interferometry entailed another important realization, that the actual imaging of dark objects, in a sense of mapping the column optical density distribution, is possible by using known numerical techniques, such as the Gerchberg-Saxton approach. This insight was also unanticipated in the beginning and caused a shift of the research focus from the initial plan. While this focus shift has been well-justified and fruitful, it has left several issues unexplored. Some of these issues, too, are included in the future research proposals.

Optics