NASA CC&E Workshop , August 21st – 25th, 2006

Report from the Technology Breakout, Monday August 21st

Chairs: Josef Kellndorfer, Mark Chopping

Rapporteur: Paul Siqueira

Questions:

* What are the most pressing science questions/issues for Terrestrial Ecology, Biodiversity, and Applied Sciences that can be addressed through technology development?

* For which potential missions related to Terrestrial Ecology, Biodiversity, and Applied Sciences is technology development the limiting step?

* What types of technology investments are needed?

* How far do current NASA investments go toward meeting these needs?

* How can we improve interactions and collaborations with NASA's technology programs and participants?

SUMMARY:

Session 1, Monday, August 21:

The group reviewed the legacy roadmap and April 2006 draft NRC decadal survey and assessed the technology readiness and needs for further investment with respect to four science focus areas and proposed missions. The findings of the discussion are summarized in Table 1.

SAR: Technology to build spaceborne SAR systems is ready. Several U.S. missions (SEASAT, SIR-A/B/C, SRTM) and the airborne platform (AIRSAR/TOPSAR) have demonstrated this technology.

LIDAR: Lidar systems are ready to be built for spaceborne deployment, and is demonstrated with airborne (LVIS) and spaceborne (IceSAT/GLAS) systems. Lifetime is dependent on sampling frequency. With respect to laser technology, the continuation/extension of the Laser Risk Reduction program was deemed useful. A technology investment in dual-wavelength lidar and suborbital testing was proposed.

Hyperspectral: Hyperspectral technology is well demonstrated with AVIRIS and ready for space-borne mission, e.g. Flora mission.

Multi-angle: Multi-angle applications are demonstrated with AirMISR and MISR on EOS. However these are not necessarily optimal for vegetation studies. The potential of future multi-angle instruments could be in synergistic canopy structure sensitivity of low to medium biomass ranges at moderate spatial (100 m) and temporal (twice a month) resolution.

Data issues: Invest in algorithm development that produce relevant biophysical products from hyperspectral data in a timely manner (avoid data backlogs)

–Could be part of an AIST call

In Situ technologies:

A urgent need has been identified in better ground measurements and it is recommended to develop in-situ technologies for more efficient and accurate collection of biophysical parameters which are needed to calibrate the remotely sensed measurements, e.g. allometric equation development for biomass,

  • e.g., ground-based canopy lidar (ECHIDNA)
  • collaboration/coordination with NSF/NEON
  • Could be an IIP topic
  • Passive / active FTIR ground-based CO2 in concert with NEON (session 2)

Session 2, Wednesday, August 23:

Measurements: (Focus on Question 1: What are the most pressing science questions/issues for Terrestrial Ecology, Biodiversity, and Applied Sciences that can be addressed through technology development?). We interpreted this in the context of expected medium-term (10 – 25 years) needs and possibilities. Recommendations: prioritize measurements and the required sampling with respect to CC&E, Terrestrial Ecology, and Applied Sciences (driven by the science requirements):

a)Value: what we measure

b)Temporal (vegetation dynamics; “continuity and systematic measurements required”; diurnal needed for some measurements)

c)Coverage (global; repeat rate important)

d)Spatial (high resolution may not always yield better results)

Points for consideration:

-Instrument technology can address a) and d), the budget constrains mostly b) and c)

-Carefully selected instrument/mission combinations (medium-size missions realizing big synergies) might be most cost-effective);

-Demonstrate the technology with single missions, then move to systematic if appropriate; e.g., sparse but global vegetation lidar coverage would have benefits today, even if the potential of this technology is much larger (full coverage, high revisit rate, extended missions, multi-wavelength, multi-angle). These immediate benefits include:

  • Use of lidar to calibrate or train spatially continuous data sets from SAR/InSAR, multi-angle, and (hyper)spectral instruments;
  • synergies with other NASA ES and other programs.

Interactions & Collaborations: (Focus on Question 5: “How can we improve interactions and collaborations with NASA's technology programs and participants?”). Make more use of ESTO’s ESTIPS database ( suggestion to update ESTIPS to serve as a discussion blog (NOTE: “ESTIPS technology requirement content is validated by the community at ESTO technology planning workshops open to the public. The current content of ESTIPS is based on the ESTO Technology Planning Workshop held on March 5-6, 2003.”).

New / Additional Questions: Should we invest in tools to aid technology adoption (data for data/technology fusion studies should be made less intractable even though concurrency will often be a fundamental limitation, or pursue a transparent “sensor web” approach) – or in new instruments? Consensus: Both, with a bias towards instrument development.

Other technologies & ideas not already mentioned:

  • improvements to moderate resolution spectral / angular sensing, e.g., (1) NOAA/GOES HES-CWI: 12-band instrument at 150-300 m spatial resolution with diurnal (> 3 x day) sampling from GEO (2) WFIS (IIP): 120 degree FOV providing 1 - 2 nm resolution from 500 nm - 1000 nm at ~1 km from LEO: wide swath with no moving parts)  examples only
  • “Outside the Box”: (1) Commercial airliners (coverage/stability?); (2) High Altitude Balloons or Airships at altitudes of 25-35 km, (Anderson, M., Low Road to the Heavens, Science 313(5788):756, August 11, 2006); (3) Cost/benefit of deploying micro-satellites to obtain critical measurements

Not discussed:

  • Passive microwave
  • New thermal IR technologies / instruments

– END –

Table 1: Summary of technology assessment for candidate missions meeting the NRC/legacy roadmap requirements.

Science Theme -> / Ecosystem
function/
Physiology / Vegetation 3-D
Structure/Biomass / Carbon
Budget/
Active CO2 / Coastal Ocean Carbon
Ready for
Space
Deployment / Hyperspectral
imager at 60
m resolution / Lidar/P-band polarimetric
SAR to capture biomass
ranges in boreal and
temperate biomes +
disturbance globally / Moderate
resolution
Hyperspectral
imager from
GEO
Ready for
Suborbital
Demon-
strations / DONE with
AVIRIS / Optimal Lidar/SAR sensor
suite for the tropics
Lidar (optimal sampling rantes?) +
single-pass/dual frequency
L-Band multi-baseline
L-Band and/or P-band
polarimetric interferometry
L-band and /or P-band
repeat-pass interferometry
Done with AirMISR/ASAS? / DIAL Laser,
1.2 micron
laser
Emerging
Technologies / Lower mass
Detector
Arrays / Multi-angle Instruments / Mixed layer
depth
Measurements
using lasers