September 8, 2006

 

From: Ben Holt

 

Subject: Notes and actions from ASF UWG Meeting, Aug. 24-25, 2006, held at ASF.

 

Meeting Attendees:

Wade Albright

Scott Arko

Don Atwood

Patrick Denny

Craig Dobson

Katy Farness, for Ken Jezek - UWG

Michelle Harbin

Ben Holt - UWG

Ian Joughin - UWG

Ken Jezek – telecon, UWG

Marilene Kazior – for Sharolyn Young, UWG

Ron Kwok – telecon, UWG

Nettie La Belle-Hamer

Zhong Lu, UWG

Frank Monaldo, UWG

Jeremy Nicoll

Bill Pichel – telecon, UWG

Roger Smith

Ron Weaver – for Ted Scambos, UWG

Vicky Wolf

 

UWG members who were not able to attend included Bruce Chapman, Martin Jeffries, Eric Rignot, Ted Scambos, Masanobu Shimada, Sharolyn Young, and Howard Zebker.  Also not able to attend was Medora Macie from ESDIS.

 

Meeting Summary

The meeting was scheduled fairly quickly to coincide with the 15th anniversary of ASF’s operational downlinking of SAR data.  We had an effective meeting despite the modest attendance, which was due in large part to travel conflicts of many UWG members.  A key focus of the meeting was about recent plans and actions for new and continuing foreign SAR satellite data, particularly as described by Craig Dobson.  The ASF team provided updates and responses to actions from the very positive previous meeting held last November.  Overall, the UWG was very pleased with the ASF system and its functioning, with three thumbs up for its user services, tools, data ordering and delivery. 

 

Also, the UWG had very positive responses to the recent plans for ALOS and RADARSAT1 and the designation of ASF to handle AIRSAR distribution.  Craig has put together a multi-agency consortium with the intent to pull resources together for an ALOS PALSAR data buy made to the Americas Data Node (wing of ASF) whereupon data are obtained and delivered to PIs through ASF DAAC.  Final agreements are being formulated for both the consortium and extent of data buy.  This is very positive because it identifies the need for collective support and value of this data by various agencies (NASA, NOAA, NSF, USGS) and helps US investigators by removing the issues that arose that prevented NASA from completing an MOU with JAXA based on the ALOS selection of US data proposals.  For RADARSAT1, after the end of the current agreement with CSA, all parties (CSA, NASA, NOAA, and RSI) have discussed the use of RADARSAT-1 primarily for science purposes with continued US participation and the termination of the US data allocation restrictions. RADARSAT2 will handle all commercial and operational acquisitions (Canadian Ice Center, for example).  So in theory the US should be able to increase acquisitions from RADARSAT1, with the main caveat of course being the continuing health of the spacecraft and instrument and the now very limited capability of the onboard recorder.  CSA is seeking funding to continue RADARSAT-1 operations after the commissioning of RADARSAT-2 has been completed.  Craig is pursuing other involvement with foreign SAR missions including TerraSAR-X, RADARSAT-2 and -3, and others.  There was a good discussion of IPY activities, particularly related to the GIIPSY plan being developed by Ken Jezek and others, which led to some actions to develop science strategies related to SAR planning and acquisition strategy.

 

Two science presentations were made, one by Katy Farness on Antarctic INSAR results and the other by Ian Joughin on recent Greenland acquisitions and INSAR results.  Other planned short science talks were unfortunately not given due to time constraints, but are on the CDROM.  There was discussion about adding a UWG member representing CSTARS/U. Miami due to its new relationship with ASF as a strategic downlinking partner, with no conclusion made.  There was felt to be some urgency to hold the next meeting fairly soon, due to ALOS developments and IPY activities and possibly that it should be held jointly with PODAG.  Based on the anticipated schedule of IPY NRA announcements, the release of the NRC decadal survey (late 2006) and development of NASA’s strategic plan for Earth Science, a March-April-May 2007 time frame was identified and the meeting will likely not be held at ASF.  Ron Weaver is going to discuss the idea of a joint meeting (perhaps in Boulder) with PODAG at that group’s next meeting in late October. Recently, Ron Kwok raised the notion of having a NASA IPY meeting, a broader meeting that would include NASA IPY-NRA supported investigators as well as the UWGs and representatives from both ASF and PODAG.  We may also set up a short meeting at the Fall AGU particularly to discuss GIIPSY and IPY activities.  All the presentations for this UWG meeting are being mailed to the UWG list on a CDROM and will be posted at least for the time being at http://psc.apl.washington.edu/ASFUWG/.

 

After the meeting ended at Friday noon, ASF hosted a reception for current and former ASF personnel plus university administrators.  On Saturday a public open house was held, with over 300 in attendance.  There were three articles in the local newspaper about the open house. Particular note should be made of the comprehensive ASF timeline developed by user services that is wall-mounted outside the operations room plus the special 15th anniversary News and Notes bulletin edited by Vicky Wolf that contained review articles of key science topics related to ASF data and activities.

 

Actions from last meeting

1.  A UWG letter will be written to NRC Decadal Survey Panel, likely to key individuals.  The letter will focus on key science and broad community involvement with SAR data with specific examples, the lessons learned from using and accessing foreign sensors, why we need more SAR data generically AND a NASA mission (including the value overcoming access barriers present when accessing foreign SAR data).  Ben will write draft (end of January), with editing by Craig and UWG especially Ken and Howard Zebker who serve on Decadal panels.  We need to identify recipients of letter for example Eric Barron, and perhaps Ken and Howard themselves. Target submittal date is mid-February.  This was thought to still be useful if drafted and sent as soon as possible.  Ben was sent out draft by August 31 (yes 2006 not 2007) and will be submitted September 8.

 

2. ALOS.  The UWG saw a need to encourage the NASA support regarding ALOS data and ASF’s role.  The near-term action is to hold a telecon with ASF, Craig, and at least some UWG members to hear from Craig about his views and possible actions, including for example writing a letter to Martha Maiden or Jack Kaye. A telecon date will be arranged by Nettie, Ben, and Craig and announced to UWG.  The UWG also requests that the most recent proposal submitted by ASF to NASA be provided for review.  DONE

 

3. Notify broad community of availability of SAR data to US investigators via ASF and ASF capabilities.  A) Zhong and Ben will investigate requirements for a short announcement to AGU’s newsletter Eos and submit a short announcement together with ASF.  This is intended to counteract broad perception that SAR data can only be obtained for non-NASA investigations through RADARSAT International (RSI).  It should also mention revised ASF web interface.  B) ASF should write a university or organization profile for IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society Newsletter.  The current folks in charge of university profiles for the newsletter is Sandra Cruz-Pol (sandracruzpol@ieee.org) and for organization profiles is David Kunkee (david.b.kunkee@aero.eng).  Ben can provide more details if needed.  C) Ben will submit a meeting summary in February to the Earth Observer newsletter that is published bi-monthly by Goddard.  Craig and ASF will review draft.  Partially completed with Fall AGU special session. A) Eos article assigned to Don, B) profile assigned to Nettie, and C) assigned to Ben and Don.

 

4. The UWG requests investigation of data quality issues to determine if further improvements are possible in the SWB image quality.  The UWG also requests that ASF provide nominal processing for additional RADARSAT-1 modes, including wide mode and narrow Scansar.  These modes may only have partial calibration.  ASF will provide the UWG with a plan and schedule for these additional modes by the next quarterly telecon. Data quality investigated-see presentations -Done. Plan for additional processed modes - OPEN.

 

5. The UWG encourages the ongoing effort of ASF to provide tools for making GeoTiff products from current processed data.  The UWG requests examples of these products be provided by ASF for examination including for a subset of a global DEM with terrain correction, along with documentation on data format and utility. Continuing, with release of terrain correction in Convert tool expected soon.

 

6. ASF should investigate the possibility of downlinking Envisat ASAR data to ASF over Antarctica, including McMurdo, as part of a Category 1 proposal to ESA focused on coincident SAR acquisitions with IceSAT.   DONE.

 

7. The UWG web site has been hosted and maintained by Harry Stern at APL/UW.  ASF will make a plan to provide a new host site for this activity.  OPEN, assigned to Don.

 

New Action Items

1. Craig requested a timeline histogram of satellite acquisitions into McMurdo receiving station. Assigned to Vicky, due by October.

 

2. Identify UWG and other ASF users to beta test both ECHO interface and USRA interface as needed.  Assigned to Jeremy and Vicky.

 

3. Shorten process for submittal and approval of short data proposals.  Assigned to Craig and User services. DONE. A telecon was held between Craig Dobson, Medora Macie, Don Atwood, and Vicky Wolf.  At the meeting it was agreed that all proposals would henceforth be submitted electronically only to the asf@eos.nasa.gov email address.  Any new proposals submitted and any ready for NASA final approval would be bundled and sent electronically to Craig and Medora once a week unless needed urgently.

 

4. Is there a method to provide NASA support to attend ASF SAR/INSAR courses?  Assigned to Craig and Don to develop plan if method identified.

 

5. Post on ASF web site ongoing calibration results for RADARSAT1 and ERS2.  Remove group of 4 corner reflectors from graphs that may be producing spurious results. Assigned to Jeremy/Wade.

 

6. Eric Rignot provided some suggestions to the USRA order interface and capability.  Jeremy Nicoll and Jeanne Laurencelle have already interfaced with Eric.  The remaining action is that ASF will provide on-line documentation of the changes that have been made to the Level 0 Vexcel processor and format over time.

 

7. The UWG will evaluate a set of compressed images to be sent by User Services that match RSI/CSA specifications for acceptable open distribution of imagery for their suitability as browse products.

 

8. All UWGers are encouraged to access Americas Data Node (AADN) through the ASF site and examine the ALOS coverage plans, which utilize about 80% of the satellites on-time capacity.  Then users should work with ASF to develop possible acquisition scenarios if their needs are not met by these plans and provide these back plans to Craig to incorporate into level of interest for multi-agency ALOS data buy levels.

 

9. (Note-This item is similar to #8 but focused on IPY). Develop observational strategies, particularly for SAR and fine resolution optical sensors, by topic areas for Ken’s GIIPSY IPY plan (file included on CDROM).  GIIPSY provides a broad approach to focus multi-satellite observations during the IPY time period to develop legacy data sets.  Requirements have been developed by the informal GIIPSY collaborations for each major cryospheric discipline. These strategies are needed to help HQ implement requirements through multi-agency and multinational IPY activities.  As appropriate, the strategies will be assessed by ASF within known ALOS and RADARSAT observation plans. Ben and Ian expressed interest to participate for sea ice and ice sheets respectively and will contact other UWG members to participate.  Ron Weaver was requested to provide material on snow requirements, via NSDIC.  All UWG members are urged to read document and to participate as interested. One-page strategies are due to Ken by mid-October.

 

10. Explore possibilities for greater cross-linking between NSIDC and ASF information and websites.  Ron and Nettie tasked with this action.

 

11.  Members of the UWG need to provide Craig with any information they have to assist in justifying the need for the McMurdo Ground Station to continue.

 

UWG Membership Update. Discussion focused on including someone from CSTARS, a strategic ASF partner for providing additional RADARSAT coverage.  Several names were mentioned but no decision made.  Discussions will continue via email and next telecon, so that if new member identified, they can participate in next UWG meeting.  Also it was noted that we should identify an NSF representative as an associated member.  Craig will follow up with suggestions, likely based on ALOS consortium participation.

 

MEETING NOTES

Craig Dobson opened the meeting by describing an Earth science strategic plan that is being developed at NASA and is due to Congress by mid-December. It’s an internal review that will provide an assessment of prioritized missions and scenarios along with cost assessment.  With respect to the NRC Decadal survey, it basically anticipates what that review will contain and provides an implementation strategy based on constrained budgets.  The mission costs are being developed by JPL and GSFC.  Craig is adding to the plan the value and need for access and use of foreign data, both for science and applications.

 

He also noted that ASF DAAC contract modifications are being developed for ASF to host and distribute processed AIRSAR, currently now staged at JPL’s PO-DAAC and for ALOS and RADARSAT1 data (more later).  The new Cryospheric program manager, Seelye Martin from the University of Washington, will be starting this September/October.  Craig anticipates that Seelye will take on oversight of IPY activities and Icesat while Craig will continue to provide oversight to ASF, which fits in well with his primary task of developing a NASA INSAR mission.

 

Nettie Labelle-Hamer described the current organizational structure, with no fundamental change from the previous meeting, as well as the current level of requests and products delivered.  The average number of Level 1 requests per month is around 4000, with over 97% being for RADARSAT1.  The average number of Level 0 requests is about 300 products per month.  There is no backlog basically for all product requests.  Some of these requests are for data from within the McMurdo and now CSTARS station mask centered near Miami.  She also mentioned that McMurdo data transcription has significantly improved due to a change in media to LTO and overall quality. 

 

Jeremy Nicoll next described the activities of the Engineering Center.  The first topic revolved around user interfaces.  ASF is complying with requirements for the so-called ECHO interface, which centralizes the NASA products metadata and is to replace the Eos Data Gateway (EDG) within a year. Apparently the ECHO interface is currently functional for searching only.  It specifically does not support near-real time requests because the catalog is not updated frequently enough. ASF is continuing to develop a custom interface, called USRA, which started off as the interface for ordering Level 0 data, functions now for ordering NRT processing, and will eventually include search and order for Level 1 products as well.  Jeremy also described the continuing efforts in developing the generic acquisition and processing (GAP) system that manages much of the system operations plus some additional changes to the internal infrastructure related to unifying Unix, virtual machines, and networking.  The UWG acknowledges the value and efforts of this groups effort to improve the ASF functionality.

 

Don Atwood next described the Remote Sensing Center activities.  ASF is developing an agreement with a receiving station in Cordoba, Argentina, for US investigators to access R1 data over southern South America.. The same organization hopes to build a ground station further south in Ushiua, in the near future.  He also described recent projects for Greenland coverage (for Ian Joughin) and Antarctica (for Ken Jezek) plus ongoing SAR wind speed processing within the ASF mask.  Other continuing outreach efforts were described, including a consideration for possible funding support by NASA for student participation in the INSAR course.  There was a discussion on shortening the time involved for approving short data proposals that will be worked out with Craig and Medora.  The RADARSAT baseline tool was acknowledged to be of high utility by the UWG.  Don provided updates on the Convert tool, particularly regarding the implementation of terrain correction, which will be finalized this fall.  The goal of this tool is not only to help users manipulate SAR imagery into useful formats, but also to encourage more non-SAR experts by providing tools and capabilities that may be applied to GIS applications. Patrick Denny provided a nice demonstration of the terrain correction tool.  Don also described continuing calibration efforts and assessments, including charts that show a time series of RADARSAT returns over the ASF corner reflector array by standard beam. The sensor continues to provide stable radiometric returns.  Efforts will be made to clean up some of the noise in the graphics after removal of returns from a closely situated array of 4 reflectors.  Eventually these time series calibration results will be posted on the ASF web site. Recent test results were described about an effort to develop inexpensive small reflectors that may be deployed to act as permanent scatters within a natural (non-urban) environmen.  Lastly, Kirk Hogenson provided a very nice demonstration of the SAR training processor.  The UWG is very enthusiastic about the efforts of this ASF center.

 

Processed AIRSAR data and metadata will be ported to ASF, who will archive and distribute the data through the USRA interface.  The processing capability will remain at JPL.  Efforts are in place for ASF to participate in the UAV SAR program, as a distribution and perhaps processing center.

 

RADARSAT. Craig described recent plans regarding RADARSAT1 data.  With the agreement of RSI, CSA and NASA/NOAA have agreed in principle that the US allocation for RADARSAT1 data will be removed after the current agreement ends (currently November 2007 with several other caveats).  CSA hopes to continue supporting R1 operations as part of Canada’s extensive involvement in the International Polar Year (IPY), which begins nominally in 2007.   R1 would be utilized for research while all commercial and operational activities would be handled by RADARSAT2.  The US will likely contribute to this joint effort by providing data processing and distribution to both US and Canadian investigators. Ian suggested that RADARSAT2 also be considered for Antarctic data acquisitions, since R2 has the capability of looking on both sides of the spacecraft track and therefore no coverage holes exist for Antarctica.  Craig thought this would fit in very well with his plan to eventually access R2 data for research.  The group also suggested that efforts be made to discuss open access to the all R1 data holdings within the US and including the CSA archive. Craig hopes to waive all foreign ground station data access fees as well, although this would have to be done on a station by station basis and not with a blanket agreement.  Holt asked if a way had been found to derive interferograms with both R1/R2 in tandem, as the frequencies for each are slightly offset. Zhong responded that his investigation of this issue suggested it would not be possible.  Finally, CSA is studying a RADARSAT3/C constellation of three satellites with limited duty cycles.  Craig would like to develop plans and costs to potentially at least increase the duty cycles to accommodate US investigations.

 

ALOS. Craig and Nettie described current efforts involving ALOS.  It is important to remember that UAF/ASF has established a separate entity called the American ALOS data node (AADN) with NOAA.  Nettie described that currently the AADN can provide ALOS data to any investigator at the basic cost of $125 per scene with a one-month delay for all three fine resolution sensors (PALSAR, AVNIR, PRISM).  Craig has put together a US multi-agency consortium (NASA, NSF, USGS, and NOAA) to pull together resources and assemble a large PALSAR data buy through AADN to support US investigations.  This agreement, which is not finalized yet, would include an ASF DAAC role to provide the data to the investigators.  It is assumed (but not known yet) that the price per scene will be adjusted downward due to volume of data buy.  The level of participation and agreement of the consortium and pricing with AADN/ASF are still in progress.  The very positive aspect of this effort is that US investigators will have access to PALSAR data, with the costs covered by the consortium.  Also, the development of the consortium means that each agency acknowledges the value of the data to their respective programs and includes financial support.  Also it removes the difficulty of obtaining MOUs between JAXA and NASA for JAXA-approved US investigators, which it turns out are not possible to obtain.  Users are encouraged to access AADN through the ASF site and examine the ALOS PALSAR coverage plans, which utilizes about 80% of the satellite’s on-time capacity.  Then users should work with ASF to develop possible acquisition scenarios if their needs are not met by these plans and provide these scenarios to Craig to incorporate into level of interest for agency data buy.

 

Other SAR missions.  Craig also discussed possibilities of accessing two X-band sensors, TerraSAR-X (http://www.terrasar.de/ ) and COSMOS Skymed (http://www.alespazio.it/earth_observation_page.aspx?IdProg=23 ).  TerraSAR-X currently only has one downlink station and processor at DLR, representing an underutilization of spacecraft capacity and overall interest in the data. It is scheduled to launch in October 2006.  Skymed is an Italian mission consisting of 4 satellites with X-band SAR.  They missions represent possible opportunities for new data streams and a new frequency.

 

IPY and GIIPSY.  Craig stated there were 92 NASA IPY proposals submitted and the panel review will be held in October.  Most of the conversation was directed towards GIIPSY, an IPY initiative intended to produce integrated and focused satellite snapshots of the polar regions during IPY (proposal included in meeting CDROM).  Ken Jezek and Mark Drinkwater have been leading this effort and have identified many collaborators including several members of the UWG.  Science and sensor observational requirements have been developed for ice sheets, sea ice, snow cover, glaciers and ice caps, and polar atmosphere topics.  Craig has identified that such an initiative could be very useful as a basis for developing NASA-supported, multi-agency national and international IPY activities.  Most of the sensors identified are large-swath daily operational sensors along with finer-resolution SAR and optical/near IR sensors, with the latter requiring more effort to develop acquisition strategies and agreements.  The other aspect is focused on assembling multiple data streams into central archives with common formats, to establish these multiple data streams as IPY legacy datasets.  Craig suggested that what is needed is to develop observational strategies by discipline for the finer resolution sensors, specifically SAR.  These strategies should be developed by current GIIPSY collaborators and others who may be interested, then provided to ASF for assessment, and finally passed on to Ken for assembly into document.  A due date was determined to be mid-October.  Ian offered to help with ice sheets, Ben (and Ron Kwok) for sea ice, and Ron Weaver for snow with NSIDC folks.