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NASA’s Commercial Satellite Data Acquisition (CSDA) Program announces the addition of imagery from Vantor to its Satellite Data Explorer (SDX) data access and discovery tool. The imagery, which was obtained by Vantor’s Legion satellites, comes from Vantor’s 125-plus petabyte imagery archive, which dates back to 1999. The imagery from this archive contains a mix of panchromatic (black/white) and color imagery (up to 18 multispectral bands) and offers global coverage of up to 30 cm resolution.

There are three types of imagery available from this archive in SDX:

System-Ready Level 1B Data	This data is idea for users who are looking to apply their own tools and models to fully process the data and extract the information that they need. It comes with all bands, full bit-depth, and requires further processing to be ready for deriving downstream analytics. This basic processing of this product offers an imagery product ready for custom orthorectification.
View-Ready Level 2A Data	This processing level is intended for users who want to get straight to using the data to extract downstream analytical information. It provides a basis for deriving downstream analytics and has been orthorectified against a coarse digital elevation model (DEM). It comes with all bands and full bit depth.
Map-Ready 3-D	This data product offers standardized and orthorectified (i.e., corrected to remove distortion caused by terrain variations, and sensor angle), imagery that has been radiometrically calibrated and geo-rectified to produce a highly accurate imagery product ready for seamless integration into workflows. Map-ready data is ideal for image viewing and locational referencing and offers a high degree of cartographic accuracy.

Vantor’s Legion satellites offer 8-band visible and near-infrared multispectral imagery at a resolution of up to 30-centimeters for use in a wide variety of applications ranging from agriculture and natural resources monitoring to disaster response and environmental surveillance.

Further, the addition of these datasets to the CSDA Program’s SDX enhances the tool’s utility for users within the larger NASA’s Earth observation community to find high-resolution data that meets their needs.

“NASA established the CSDA Program is to identify, evaluate, and acquire data from commercial sources that support NASA’s Earth science research and application goals,” said CSDA Project Manager Dana Ostrenga. “The inclusion of these Vantor data products in SDX is an example of our focus on realizing that mission and marks yet another step to our goal of bringing high-quality data from NASA’s commercial partners to users within the Earth observation science community.”

About SDX

The SDX allows users to search, discover, and access a variety of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), digital elevation model (DEM), synthetic aperture radar (SAR), multispectral, and precipitation radar data acquired through the CSDA program. It also provides streamlined data download, automated quota tracking, and a new coverage map that provides a high-level overview of the spatial coverage of the data discoverable through the SDX for any specified month and year.  For a summary of the NASA commercial partner datasets available in SDX, visit the SDX website.

Researchers interested in accessing these data in SDX can use their Earthdata Login for authentication and initiate data download requests. Data will be made available for download upon approval and acceptance of the end user license agreement (EULA).

To order data from SDX, users must create an account with and be logged in to NASA Earthdata.  (The initial attempt to use SDX will redirect users to Earthdata Login, where they will be prompted to enter their Earthdata credentials and accept the terms of the EULA.) Users must agree to the terms of the EULA before any data can be requested.  Note: All data requests must be approved by CSDA data managers. 

About the CSDA Program

NASA’s Earth Science Division (ESD) established the CSDA Program to identify, evaluate, and acquire data from commercial providers that to support NASA’s Earth science research and applications. NASA recognizes the potential of commercial satellite constellations to advance Earth System Science and applications for societal benefit and believes commercially acquired data may also can augment the Earth observations acquired by NASA, and other U.S. government agencies, and NASA’s international partners.

All data from CSDA contract-awarded vendors are evaluated by the investigator-led CSDA project teams that assess the value of adding a vendor’s data to CSDA’s data holdings based on their quality and how they might benefit in the context of NASA Earth science research and applications. To learn more about the program, its commercial partners, data evaluation process, and more, visit the CSDA website.

Learning Resources

For more information on the CSDA Program’s SDX, see the tool’s user guide.

NASA’s Commercial Satellite Data Acquisition (CSDA) Program released a new Data Acquisition Request System, which lets authorized users submit proposals for yet-to-be-collected data from CSDA’s commercial partners and track their requests through an easy-to-use dashboard.

“With the Data Acquisition Request System, approved users will be able to ‘task,’ meaning to request future data, from a CSDA commercial partner’s satellite,” said Aaron Kaulfus, CSDA Data Management Team Lead. “The process begins with a user submitting a proposal that is subject to an approval process. If approved, the proposal will be processed by a  CSDA commercial partner in accordance with the user’s other parameters.”

The Data Acquisition Request System has been incorporated into the CSDA Program’s Satellite Data Explorer (SDX), an online tool for searching, discovering, and accessing the commercial satellite data acquired by NASA. (Note: Although anyone can browse the CSDA’s data holdings, only authorized data users can log into the SDX and request data. Information on the user authentication and authorization process is provided below.)

“The dashboard shows users the proposals they’ve submitted and informs them of each proposal’s status and whether it’s been approved. In the case a proposal is partially approved, the dashboard will also include information supporting that decision,” said Kaulfus. “After approval, the proposal will be processed by the vendor, and the requested data will be collected and delivered to the system for download. This means that users can now request data from a vendor, track the status of their proposal, and download the data all in one place.”

By providing these services in a single, centralized system, the CSDA aims to make the process of requesting future data from CSDA vendors more efficient and user-friendly.

“Currently, the proposal process relies on users filling in a PDF-type form about their data needs followed by a series of email exchanges among users, CSDA Program staff, and vendors,” Kaulfus said. “The Data Acquisition Request System confines all of these interactions in a single, streamlined system, which allows users’ proposals to move through the [proposal review] process as quickly and efficiently as possible.”  

That process includes in-depth proposal reviews by CSDA staff to ensure the requested data fall within the program’s budget and the vendor’s capabilities. Therefore, the program’s response to users’ proposals won’t be immediate. Still, Kaulfus says the Data Acquisition Request System’s dashboard will help CSDA staff stay abreast of each proposal’s status and any actions required to keep it moving through the evaluation process.

In addition to expediting users’ proposals, the Data Acquisition Request System will help the program address CSDA data users’ needs over the long term by providing the program with information it can use to expand its catalog of commercial satellite data. 

“We’ve realized that, through the Data Acquisition Request System, we can collect and catalog our users’ requests to inform future CSDA initiatives and add to our current capabilities,” said Kaulfus. “For example, in regard to fire applications, we really don’t have vendors that will support hotspot detection right now. But if a large number of users’ submit proposals requesting hotspot detection data, then that points to a need that we’ve not addressed.”

This ability to zero-in on unmet user needs supports the program’s goal of expanding the use of commercial data within NASA’s data-user community.

“Expanding the use of commercial data is a big part of this effort,” said Kaulfus. “We want to grow the audience of people who use our data and we want to do it efficiently, but for that to happen, we need information about the data that users need. Along with direct feedback from users themselves, the Data Acquisition Request System will help us get it.”

Learning Resources

For more information on the CSDA Program’s SDX, see the SDX user guide.

CSDA Program Announces Eight New Data Agreements

NASA’s Commercial Satellite Data Acquisition (CSDA) Program announced eight new agreements with seven of its commercial partners— Airbus Defense and Space GEO Inc (Airbus U.S.), Capella Space Corporation, ICEYE US, MDA Space, Planet Labs, Umbra, and Vantor (formerly Maxar)—to give users more access to near‑global multispectral and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data. With these agreements, the CSDA program further advances its mission to acquire data from commercial providers that supports NASA’s Earth science research and applications, and expands the quality, coverage, and range of Earth observation data NASA offers to the scientific community.

“These new agreements will provide users with a range of high-quality multispectral and SAR data that can be used in a variety of applications from environmental monitoring to surface deformation,” said CSDA Project Manager Dana Ostrenga. “In addition, they exemplify the CSDA Program’s commitment to acquiring data that enhances and supports the agency’s application and research objectives.”

New Near-Global, Multispectral Imagery

In support of NASA programs and stakeholders, the CSDA program enacted three agreements with Planet, Airbus, and Vantor (formerly Maxar) to provide near‑global multispectral and pan‑sharpened electro‑optical satellite imagery of nearly all global land and coastal surfaces. This imagery has a spatial resolution of approximately 30 centimeters, 1 meters, and up to 10 meters (depending on the product) and is suitable for applications including environmental monitoring, agriculture, and urban applications. Data products will include Top of Atmosphere radiances and surface reflectance across the visible and near‑infrared spectrum.

New SAR Data

In response to NASA’s and users’ needs for SAR data, and following rigorous technical and programmatic evaluation, CSDA executed five agreements for high‑resolution SAR imagery, including tasked Spotlight, StripMap, Scan, Wide/Extended Spotlight, and Long‑Dwell modes, with Capella, ICEYE, MDA, Umbra, and Airbus. These SAR capabilities provide all‑weather, day‑night imaging that complements the electro‑optical agreements and enhances NASA’s ability to monitor dynamic processes such as flooding, land deformation, sea‑ice motion, and infrastructure impacts. Further, under these agreements, each commercial partner will provide specific data requirements consistent with their respective sensor capabilities and performance, as well as tasking and archive access.

Increased Access and User Eligibility

The data acquired under these agreements will be made available to authorized commercial satellite data users in accordance with the CSDA Program’s End User License Agreements (EULAs).  EULAs generally pertain to NASA‑funded investigators and designated collaborators and outline established mechanisms for accessing CSDA data, such as the CSDA Satellite Data Explorer (SDX) and related portals. Users can contact the CSDA Program at csda-support@nasa.gov to obtain additional information about user agreements, detailed product specifications, and procedures for requesting and accessing these commercial datasets for their research and application activities.

About the CSDA Program

NASA’s Earth Science Division (ESD) established the CSDA Program to identify, evaluate, and acquire data from commercial providers that to support NASA’s Earth science research and applications. NASA recognizes the potential of commercial satellite constellations to advance Earth System Science and applications for societal benefit and believes commercially acquired data may also can augment the Earth observations acquired by NASA, and other U.S. government agencies, and NASA’s international partners.

All data from CSDA contract-awarded vendors are evaluated by the investigator-led CSDA project teams that assess the value of adding a vendor’s data to CSDA’s data holdings based on their quality and how they might benefit in the context of NASA Earth science research and applications. To learn more about the program, its commercial partners, data evaluation process, and more, visit the CSDA website.

Looking at Chlorophyll from Space

By Compton “Jim” Tucker

NASA scientists are able to study plants from space, but this wasn’t always the case.

“I love using satellite data to study the Earth,” says Dr. Compton “Jim” Tucker. When Tucker was a graduate student, he and some friends discovered a new way to study photosynthesis.

“We realized that there was a really strong connection with the plant pigment, chlorophyll, and certain wavelengths of light. We figured out that if you wanted to study photosynthesis you needed to study chlorophyll.”

Tucker learned that you could figure out plant health by measuring how much visible and near-infrared light a plant reflects. “We call this light-type comparison the Normalized Differentiated Vegetation Index (NDVI). Really it is just a simple ratio of these two wavelengths or bands.”

This was groundbreaking science. Tucker also learned that this observation and comparison could be done from space. In 1981 the first NDVI instrument flew in space as part of the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) mission. “It is the same instrument from my working-in-the-field days, literally, just bigger.”

Later in 1983, Tucker met Piers Sellers. This meeting began a decades-long friendship and scientific collaboration. Sellers came up with a way to scale Tucker’s photosynthesis measurements. This made it possible to get detailed information about plant health around the globe — from a single leaf to plants covering a field, a forest, or a continent and all from space.

“People are always asking me when I plan to retire,” Tucker says. “And I always say that I really like what I am doing. I am going to do it for as long as I can because it is fun. Most people look at me and think ‘Are you crazy?’ I am not. It is true: I really love my work.”

By Denise Lineberry

On Jan. 31, 1958, Explorer 1 became the first satellite launched by the United States. Its primary science instrument, a cosmic ray detector, was designed to measure the radiation environment in Earth orbit. Though its final transmission was in May 1958, it continued to revolve around Earth more than 58,000 times. As those looping orbits continued, NASA was busy building other ground-breaking instruments to observe and better understand Earth’s systems.

By 1975, just five years after Explorer 1 burned up as it entered Earth’s atmosphere, NASA’s first Nimbus instrument launched, providing the first global, direct observations of the amount of solar radiation entering and exiting Earth. This helped confirm and improve the earliest climate models and laid the groundwork for NASA’s Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE).

By the 1970s, the ERBE team was beginning to plan for the next phase of Earth Radiation Budget measurements. Retired experiment scientist for ERBE, Bruce Barkstrom, recalled the very first ERBE science team meeting involved a full day of attempting to determine exactly where the top of the atmosphere was. After much debate, they assigned one person at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, to develop the number, which ended up being about 18 miles (30 kilometers) above the sphere that forms the Earth.

“That was the level of detail we had to get into as a science team,” Barkstrom said.

In October 1984, ERBE launched aboard NASA’s Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS) from the space shuttle Challenger (STS-41G).

“We had to get up at 3:30 a.m. to watch the ERBS launch at 7:30 a.m., and what I remember about that particular morning was that we had an overcast sky. And when the shuttle lit up, it was such a bright exhaust that it lit up the whole sky from underneath,” Barkstrom recalled. “And then, of course, the shuttle went through the clouds, and the light dimmed, and probably about a minute later the sky lit up again because the sun was reflected off the exhaust.

“It’s impossible for me to describe this without getting a little emotional.”

For 10 years, ERBE provided invaluable data for scientists studying the energy interactions between the Sun, clouds and Earth. Its satellite measurements have provided new information on Earth’s radiation at the top of the atmosphere, including the important radiative effects of clouds on incoming and outgoing energy in the overall process.

In the late 1980s, satellite instruments provided the first direct observation that clouds cooled Earth’s climate. Former CERES Principal Investigator Bruce Wielicki developed an algorithm to apply to Nimbus and ERBE models to help quantify cloud forcing — the difference between the radiation budget components for average cloud conditions and cloud-free conditions.

With new knowledge about the important role that clouds play in Earth’s energy budget, the science team was anxious to gather more data. In 1997, the first in a new series of instruments, the Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES), launched, extending the important ERBE measurements.

Six other CERES instruments have since been activated in space to measure the solar energy reflected by Earth, the heat the planet emits, and the role of clouds in that process.

“The CERES instrument is small, it’s very elegant, it’s probably the most accurate radiometry that NASA has flown,” said CERES Principal Investigator Kory Priestley. “We’re trying to build the next generation of instrument now to meet the same requirements.”

The seventh and final CERES instrument launched aboard NOAA’s Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS)-1 in November 2017. It has since been activated and first light is expected in January 2018.

For 42 years, NASA has observed Earth’s energy budget. NASA Langley’s Earth Radiation Budget Science Team is the only group producing ERB data globally. Though our understanding of Earth’s energy budget and the technology used to gather data has taken massive strides since Explorer 1 and Nimbus, that understanding is ever-evolving.

“With Earth observations, you never complete your understanding, so you’re always at the mercy of somebody discovering some new things,” Barkstrom said. “If you’re dealing with observational science, you never have that final escape into absolute certainty where you’ll never have to change things.”

Why Measure Earth’s Energy Budget?

According to Barkstrom, attempts to understand the radiation budget started in about 1880. Earth’s energy budget is a metaphor for the delicate equilibrium between energy from the Sun versus energy radiated back into space. Continuous, stable and accurate data records over decades are critical to understanding Earth’s energy balance.

The data collected improve models that provide seasonal and longer-term forecasts, which inform industry and policy makers to better plan for the future.

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Various satellites have captured a continuous record of this solar energy input since 1978. TSIS-1 sensors advance previous measurements, enabling scientists to study the Sun’s natural influence on Earth’s ozone layer, atmospheric circulation, clouds and ecosystems.

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