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June 24, 2002
NASA's EARTH OBSERVING TECHNOLOGY SATELLITE PROVES A SUCCESS
The new Earth monitoring technology
aboard NASA's Earth-Observing 1
(EO-1) satellite has proven itself
invaluable in its clarity and ability to
more accurately identify objects on the
Earth's surface, and will become part of
a long-term Earth monitoring mission on
the next Landsat satellite.
The EO-1 satellite was launched to test
new technology over a short time frame,
and confirm that it was suitable for a
long term satellite mission, such as the
next generation of Landsat satellites.
The purpose of the mission was also
aimed at lowering the costs and
increasing the performances of future
Earth science missions.
"EO-1 has been a very successful
mission. It has remained fully functional
since launch and has now produced
over four times the volume of imagery originally expected,"said Bryant Cramer,
EO-1 Implementation Manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center,
Greenbelt, Md.
Two instruments in particular, Hyperion,
the world's only hyperspectral satellite
sensor utilizing 220-bands (of the
spectrum) at approximately 30-meter
(98.4 ft.) spatial resolution and the
Advanced Land Imager (ALI), a
lightweight, high performance,
multi-spectral sensor have already
proven invaluable in monitoring the
Earth's surfaces. ALI has a
panchromatic sharpening band that
produces 10-meter (32.8 ft.) imagery.
After a one-year test aboard EO-1,
ALI's proven effectiveness in image
clarity supersedes the current ETM+
Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus
on-board the Landsat satellites. ALI
and Hyperion are providing
space-qualified new technologies as
potential models for the next generation
Landsat and other land imaging satellites.
Earth Observing-1, launched on November 21, 2000, is the first satellite in
NASA's New Millennium Program Earth Observing series. The EO missions will
develop and validate instruments and technologies for space-based Earth
observations with unique spatial, spectral and temporal characteristics not
previously available.
EO-1's primary focus is to develop and
test a set of advanced technology land
imaging instruments. However, many
other key instruments and technologies
are part of the mission and will have
wide ranging applications to future land
imaging missions in particular and future
satellites in general.
NASA and U.S. Geological Survey
(USGS) are partners on this mission.
NASA and USGS scientists believe that
the datasets will prove valuable to
global land cover studies, ecosystem
monitoring, mineral and petroleum
prospecting, and agricultural crop
assessment, among other potential applications. Image data products are now
distributed by USGS EROS Data Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
The Hyperion instrument has proven very useful in a number of applications such
as forestry. Previous capabilities from the Landsat satellite enabled researchers to
identify vegetation as hardwood, softwood, and grasslands. The Hyperion
instrument, using many of its 220 bands from the spectrum, enables scientists to
distinguish the types of trees, from Red Pine to Red Oak, and the types of
environments including hardwood bogs, mixed conifers and spruce swamplands.
This type of data is very important to land managers.
The Hyperion data can also indicate
healthy grasslands and dormant
vegetation, and can distinguish
riverbeds from brush, paved and dirt
road surfaces, and planted areas, down
to the details of what type of crop is
growing. This kind of data is especially
useful for farmers who need to fertilize
certain crops.
Some of the results from the ALI
technology include a sharp image of the
path of the deadly La Plata, Maryland
Tornado from May of 2002. An
improvement of clarity in images over local areas was also seen in an image of
Sutton, Alaska taken by the Landsat-7 ETM+ and the ALI, where the ALI image
proved to be much sharper. The ALI instrument also provided the sharpest
images of Las Vegas at night, clearly depicting the casino lights that lined a main
street.
Results from the EO-1 mission will be
presented today at the 2002
International Geoscience and Remote
Sensing Symposium at the Westin
Harbour Castle Hotel and Conference
Center, Toronto, Canada. The session
"Overview of the Earth Observing
System-1 Satellite," will be presented by
Dr. Stephen Ungar of NASA Goddard.
NASA-TV will air video on this story
today at 12 noon, 3 p.m., 6 p.m., 9
p.m., and midnight. NASA-TV can be
found at AMC-2 (formerly GE-2)
transponder 9C, C Band, 85 degrees west longitude, vertical polarization 3880.0
mHz, audio at 6.8 mHz.
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Contacts:
Mark Hess
Mark.Hess@gsfc.nasa.gov
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
(Phone: 301/286-2806)
Rob Gutro
rgutro@pop900.gsfc.nasa.gov
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
(Phone: 301/286-4044)
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Before and After the Maryland Tornado
One of the strongest tornadoes in Maryland
weather history, an F4 (out of 5) on the Fuijita
scale, devastated the town of La Plata just
after 7pm Eastern Time on April 28th, 2002.
The line of storms that generated the tornado
brought hail, high winds, downpours, and
other twisters. The La Plata tornado injured
dozens of people and killed two.
These two pictures from the EO-1 Satellite's
Advanced Land Imager (ALI) show the town
of La Plata on April 24th, days before the
tornado, and on May 1st, days after. The after
satellite image clearly depicts the tornado's
path of damage in a dusty trail.
Time Sequence of Hyperion Images: Watching Crops Over Time
This time sequence over the
2001Australiangrowing season illustrates the
evolution of different crops through their
growing cycle. The images are based on how
much sunlight and the color spectrum that the
crops reflect back to space.The intensity of
the red color is an indicator of the chlorophyll
activity and the plant vitality. Hyperion aboard
the EO-1 satellite took this time series of
images, showing the progression of crop
growth from January tomid-March, 2001.The
information helps farmers monitor the health of
their crops. Credit: Jay Pearlman, TRW and
David Jupp, CSRIO Australia
Reflected Light Signatures From Crops and Soil
Crops and even bare soil have unique
signatures through the colors they reflect from
the sunlight. The observations with Hyperion
include visible, near infrared and short-wave
infrared light. These signatures measured by
the Hyperion instrument on the EO-1
Spacecraft allow scientists to identify the
different plant types. Credit: Jay Pearlman,
TRW and David Jupp, CSRIO Australia
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