NASA scientists have developed a new space-based imager with very high resolution which will help foresters, farmers and geologists, and lay the foundation for future land-imaging systems
WITH the new millennium just round the
bend, the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration (NASA) has dedicated several missions for a planet it did
not care for much before - Earth.
Dubbed 'The Planet Earth Enterprise',
the project seeks to implement NASA's
space-age technology for life on earth.
An advance, lightweight scientific
instrument designed to produce visible
and infrared images of the earth's land
surfaces has been selected as the focus.
The Advanced Land Imager (ALI) Will
demonstrate remote-sensing measurements consistent with the data collected
since 1972 through the Land Sat series of
satellites. The data is used by foresters,
farmers, geologists and a host of other
people for monitoring and assessing terrestrial resources. It would also acquire
data with finer spectral resolution and
most importantly, lay the technological
groundwork for future land imaging
systems.
ALI cuts down mass and electrical
power usage almost seven-fold, compared to the current LandSat 5. In addition, ALI is equipped with 'a spectrometer on chip'- a wide field observing
system on an integrated silicon carbide
chip with automatic, in-flight optical
calibration system. The institutes
marked out for putting ALI in
final shape are NASA's Goddard
Space Flight Center in Greenbelt,
Maryland, and the Lincoln
Laboratory at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, both
in the us.
The instrument will have a
resolution of 10 rn in the black-
and-white range (i.e., locations on
the earth surface can be scanned
with an accuracy of 10 m) and 30
rn in other spectral ranges. Charles
Kennel, NASA's associate administrator for the Planet Earth
Enterprise is optimistic, " It will
open up new windows in areas
like precision vegetation and more
accurate mineral identification."
ALI will be programmed to fly a little in
a4vance of the LandSat 5 in use now
and, thus, would be handy for a study of
comparative data. The space craft sup
port structure, including advanced electrical power and data-handling soft
ware, would be provided by Litton
Iudustries of Greenbelt, Maryland. NASA
has 0also given the license to Litton Inc to
commercialise the technology after a
couple of years.
The Topex/Poseidon satellite (a
joint venture Of NASA and the Centre
Nationale d'Etudes Spatiales, the French
space agency) focuses on studying wave
patterns in the oceans. Largescale ocean
waves, typically a few hundred miles in
wavelength, is the most important key
to global weather forecasting - a fact
that's known for long, but, as yet, one of
the least understood areas of climate
research. These waves, termed by the
generic name 'Rossby Waves', carry a
'memory' of weather changes at distant
locations over the ocean.
A natural result of the earth's rotation around its own axis, these waves are
also a key feature of largescale ocean
circulation. The poseidon data reveals
that the waves are almost thrice as fast
than previously thought. These waves alter current patterns and corresponding ocean surface temperatures and
thus, influence the way oceans release
heat to the atmosphere. The precise
information about how fast and how
high these waves are, would enable
forecasters to predict changes in global
climate patterns years in advance.
NASA's most futuristic project of the
Planet Earth Enterprise is setting up a
National Space Biomedical Research
Institute (NSBRI). The institute will
support a wide variety of basic and
applied biomedical research in space
and use that knowledge effectively to
enhance life on earth. The next century
may well be one of industrial and technological revolution, and NASA would
play no mean part.
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