Blue Marble image of the Earth taken by the crew of Apollo 17 on Dec. 7 1972.
Image Credit: NASA

We’re looking at the latest Earth Observation (EO) news from around the globe.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Last week NASA, awarded the latest contract under its Commercial SmallSat Data Acquisition Program, with eight companies selected to provide commercial EO data and related services in a contract worth a maximum value of $476 million.

The eight companies are:

• BlackSky Geospatial Solutions, Inc.
• ICEYE US Inc.
• MDA Geospatial Service Inc.
• Pixxel Space Technologies, Inc.
• Planet Labs Federal, Inc.
• Satellogic Federal, LLC.
• Teledyne Brown Engineering, Inc.
• The Tomorrow Companies Inc.

This program was established to help provide a cost-effective way to identify and acquire commercial small-satellite data to complement the suite of EO data already acquired by NASA, and other US Government agencies, in support of NASA’s Earth science goals.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

Also last week, the US Department of Commerce and NOAA gave out funding worth a total of $101.5 million to support the development and modernization of US Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS). The IOOS supports data collection in U.S. ocean, coastal and Great Lakes waters and making through regional associations. The data is collected through a range of sensors and data collection technologies, and apart from making the data available, they offer a number of products including:

• Environmental Sensor Map – provides information on oceanographic and meteorological conditions.
• IOOS Model Viewer – a platform for visualizing and analysing integrated model outputs related to environmental monitoring.
• Marine Biodiversity Observing Network – provides real-time and historical data for in situ and remotely-sensed physical, chemical and biological observations.

The areas receiving funding focused on a variety of activities, and some that caught our attention included:

• Alaska Ocean Observing System (AOOS) receiving funding to support monitoring of harmful algal blooms.
• Central and Northern California Ocean Observing System (CeNCOOS) receiving funding to expand water sampling to increase climate understanding.
• Southern California Coastal Ocean Observing System (SCOOS) receiving funding to increase capacity for monitoring harmful algal blooms.
• Great Lakes Observing System (GLOS) receiving funding to collecting ice thickness measurements.
• Gulf of Mexico Coastal Ocean Observing System (GCOOS) receiving funding to equip Indigenous communities with knowledge about surface currents, flooding, harmful algal blooms, rip currents to validate offshore data, and to develop multilingual program materials.
• Mid-Atlantic Regional Association Coastal Ocean Observing System (MARACOOS): receiving funding to support coastal resilience, including ocean acidification and water quality sensing.
• Northeastern Regional Association of Coastal Ocean Observing Systems (NERACOOS) receiving funding for improvements to biodiversity observations and assessments benefiting Indigenous communities.
• Northwest Association of Networked Ocean Observing Systems (NANOOS) receiving funding for better detection of harmful algal blooms, hypoxia, and marine heat waves.
• Caribbean Coastal Ocean Observing System (CARICOOS) receiving funding for providing water column data for improved hurricane intensity forecasting and assessing coastal and ocean ecosystem status.
• Pacific Islands Ocean Observing System (PacIOOS) receiving funding to support coastal resilience.
• Southeast Coastal Ocean Observing Regional Association (SECOORA) receiving funding for the deployment of low-cost wave buoys near frontline communities to support coastal reliance.

United Arab Emirates (UAE)

It was reported at the start of the week that Mira Aerospace successfully conducted a series of high-altitude platform station (HAPS) test flights with balloons carrying a variety of EO payloads. The tests were over Abu Al Abyad Island in the United Arab Emirates and collected a variety of environmental data.

HAPS has been noted by the World Economic Forum as one of the top ten emerging technologies, and apart from offering EO opportunities they can also offer communication services in remote areas. It will be interesting to see how this technology develops in the coming years, and what impact it may have on the broader use of Earth observation data.

China

Last week China launched a set of six Yaogan-43 EO satellites that are believed to be low Earth orbit test satellite for military purposes, and these will join the nine existing Yaogan satellites in orbit, which were launched last month. However, more interestingly last week was the release of the world’s first atlas of remote-sensing thermal infrared images from the Beijing based International Research Center of Big Data for Sustainable Development Goals (CBAS). The data is from the SDGSAT-1 satellite, which was launched in 2021 and is carrying a Thermal IR Spectrometer – more details on the satellite.

The atlas includes 10 different types of landscapes in 118 different regions around the world, and CBAS hope the atlas will help researchers looking at surface energy balance, climate change and the urban heat island effect, as well as agricultural monitoring and natural disaster assessment.

Summary

EO is a global industry and there is always something happen somewhere in the world, and sometimes things are happening all around the world!