Ben's Comments

Date: Wed, 5 May 1999 11:47:33 -0700
To: Kenneth Jezek , harry@apl.washington.edu
From: Ben Holt 
Cc: asfuwg.plus@juneau.gi.alaska.edu

Ken raised some good points

I think of this document as an implementation strategy.

I think we are going to need to revise the UWG science plan anyway, based on
status of new missions and MOU's.

ASF was located in Fairbanks to maximize coverage of
Arctic for deriving sea ice motion. It went to UAF because
Willy Weeks was going there (and clearly other UAFers were needed
to convince the UAF to agree to it) and to stay away from union-run nearby
NOAA facility. SAR sea ice motion was seen by Stan Wilson at HQ
as a desirable and quantitative product that required only algorithms
to use as opposed to derivation of scattering models for first-order
understanding (such as needed for waves). it was added into
the budget as a line item under NSCAT!!

However it is fair to say the location provided good satellite
downlinking access, which provided a good partnership
with foreign agencies and MOUs.

Now, ENVISAT and ALOS have data relay satellites. PLUS
Envisat, ALOS, LightSAR (I think), and Radarsat2 have
solid state recorders= so the need for direct downlinking
in the future is essentially going away for science, thus ASF will lose
a key 'selling' point with foreign agencies.  The real-time
operational requirements may drive a continued need for direct
downlinking but a better method may be in direct re-transmission
of raw data from the central data capture location to a processor
say, back in the States.

so the ASF 'implementation' plan needs to be based on
a SCIENCE strategy where direct downlinking is likely not
a selling point.

Ben