Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “SARS”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 1,477 records · Page 82

Comprehensive Comparison of Airborne and Spaceborne SAR and LiDAR Estimates of Forest Structure in the Tallest Mangrove Forest on Earth

A recent suite of new global-scale satellite sensors and regional-scale airborne campaigns are providing a wealth of remote sensing data capable of dramatically advancing our current understanding of the spatial distribution of forest structure and carbon stocks. However, a baseline for forest stature and biomass estimates has yet to be established for the wide array of available remote sensing products. At present, it remains unclear how the estimates from these sensors compare to one another in terrestrial forests, with a clear dearth of studies in high carbon density mangrove ecosystems. In the tallest mangrove forest on Earth (Pongara National Park, Gabon), we leverage the data collected during the AfriSAR campaign to evaluate 17 state-of-the-art sensor data products across the full range of height and biomass known to exist globally in mangrove forest ecosystems, providing a much-needed baseline for sensor performance. Our major findings are: (Houghton, Hall, Goetz) height estimates are not consistent across products, with opposing trends in relative and absolute errors, highlighting the need for an adaptive approach to constraining height estimates (Panet al., 2011); radar height estimates had the lowest calibration error and bias, with further improvements using LiDAR fusion (Bonan, 2008); biomass variability and uncertainty strongly depends on forest stature, with variation across products increasing with canopy height, while relative biomass variation was highest in low-stature stands (Le Quéréet al., 2017); a remote sensing product's sensitivity to variations in canopy structure is more important than the absolute accuracy of height estimates (Mitchardet al., 2014); locally-calibrated area-wide totals are more representative than generalized global biomass models for high-precision biomass estimates. The findings presented here provide critical baseline expectations for height and biomass predictions across the full range of mangrove forest stature, which can be directly applied to current (TanDEM-X, GEDI, ICESat-2) and future (NISAR, BIOMASS) global-scale forest monitoring missions.

Atticus E.L. Stovall↗

NASA-ISRO SAR (NISAR) Mission Status

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the United States and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) are developing the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission, now planned for launch toward the end of 2022. The mission will exploit synthetic aperture radar to map Earth’s surface every 12 days, persistently on ascending and descending portions of the orbit, over all land and ice-covered surfaces. The mission’s primary objectives will be to study Earth land and ice deformation, and ecosystems, in areas of common interest to the US and Indian science communities. This single observatory solution with an L-band (24 cm wavelength) and S-band (10 cm wavelength) radar has a swath of over 240 km at fine resolution, using full polarimetry where needed. To achieve these unprecedented capabilities, both radars use a reflector-feed system, whereby the feed aperture elements are individually sampled to allow a scan-on-receive (“SweepSAR”) capability at both L-band and S-band. The L-band and S-band electronics and feed apertures, provided by NASA and ISRO respectively, share a common 12-m diameter deployable reflector/boom system, provided by NASA. These two radars, which can operate simultaneously, even with FPGA-based on-board digital beamforming and filtering to reduce data rates, produce prodigious amounts of data. Given the high data rates and ambitious coverage requirements, new technologies for high-rate Ka-band downlink complement these first-of-a-kind radar systems.

Kumar, Raj↗

SAR Instruments Support Earth Science by Monitoring Surface Deformation and Change

With the NASA SBIR/STTR Program, Tendeg, LLC, has advanced its parabolic antenna technology. NASA’s Surface Deformation and Change (SDC) study is interested in antenna technology that could be used to capture images of Earth’s surface for science research. In 2021, Tendeg received investor funds from SDC to continue developing SBIR-related work through the Phase II-Extended (II-E) option. Tendeg’s technology has supported NASA and commercial space missions; in total, Tendeg attributes $45 million in revenue as a result of SBIR-related developments.

SBIR↗