Earth observation




During the last five decades, space agencies have sent thousands of space crafts, space capsules, or satellites to the universe. In fact, weather forecasters make predictions on the weather and natural calamities based on observations from these satellites.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) requested the National Academies to publish a report entitled, Earth Observations from Space; The First 50 Years of Scientific Achievements in 2008. It described how the capability to view the whole globe simultaneously from satellite observations revolutionized studies about the planet Earth. This development brought about a new age of combined Earth sciences. The National Academies report concluded that continuing Earth observations from the galaxy are necessary to resolve scientific and social challenges in the future.

NASAedit

The NASA introduced an Earth Observing System (EOS) composed of several satellites, science component, and data system described as the Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS). It disseminates numerous science data products as well as services designed for interdisciplinary education. EOSDIS data can be accessed online and accessed through File Transfer Protocol (FTP) and Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS). Scientists and researchers perform EOSDIS science operations within a distributed platform of multiple interconnected nodes or Science Investigator-led Processing Systems (SIPS) and discipline-specific Distributed Active Archive Centers (DACCs).

ESAedit

The European Space Agency have been operating Earth Observation satellites since the launch of Meteosat 1 in November 1977. ESA currently has plans to launch a satellite equipped with an artificial intelligence (AI) processor that will allow the spacecraft to make decisions on images to capture and data to transmit to the Earth. BrainSat will use the Intel Myriad X vision processing unit (VPU). The launching will be scheduled in 2019. ESA director for Earth Observation Programs Josef Aschbacher made the announcement during the PhiWeek in November 2018. This is the five-day meet that focused on the future of Earth observation. The conference was held at the ESA Center for Earth Observation in Frascati, Italy. ESA also launched the PhiLab, referring to the future-focused team that works to harness the potentials of AI and other disruptive innovations. Meanwhile, the ESA also announced that it expects to commence the qualification flight of the Space Rider space plane in 2021. This will come after several demonstration missions. Space Rider is the sequel of the Agency's Intermediate Experimental vehicle (IXV) which was launched in 2015. It has the capacity payload of 800 kilograms for orbital missions that will last a maximum of two months.

SpaceXedit

SpaceX was scheduled to launch a multiple satellite mission on 28 November 2018 from the United States Vandenberg Air Force Base after an initial 19 November schedule. The launch is expected to be visible once the rocket heads toward the south into an Earth observation trajectory traveling over the poles. However, the second supposed launched was delayed again because of poor weather conditions and the actual launch occurred on 3 December 2018. The mission is known as the SSO-A Smallsat Express was executed by Spaceflight, a rideshare and mission management provider based in Seattle, Wash. The launch was a landmark for Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX which had 19 rocket launches in 2018 alone. The estimated cost of this Falcon 9 rocket is approximately $62  million. The rocket has 60 satellites with each one going separate ways. On April 22, 2020, SpaceX launched their 7th constellation of 60 satellites, boosting the StarLink constellation to a total of 420 satellites in low Earth orbit.

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