In 2021, Hurricane Ida left over 1 million people without power, tornadoes tore across the American Midwest, volcanoes forced people to evacuate their homes, wildfires covered the American West and unusual flooding wreaked havoc on Central Europe.
Instruments, like this flux tower, are used by scientists to verify the accuracy of the data available in OpenET, a powerful new web-based platform that puts Earth science data about water use by crops and other vegetation into the hands of farmers and water managers.
To return function to 16 printed wire assemblies, including the two most recent, Terra’s Flight Operations Team rebooted Terra’s solid state recorder, on September 22, 2021. The successful reboot of Terra’s solid state recorder returned Terra to a level that allows full science acquisitions from all five instruments (ASTER, CERES, MISR, MODIS, and MOPITT).
The recorder reboot took nearly 12 hours to complete. The board-by-board power up sequencing resulted in all 16 printed wire assemblies of the 16 offline assemblies returning to operational status. Terra now has all 58 assemblies in service, and Terra’s data storage capacity is at the same level it had at launch. There are currently no known hardware limitations to the operation of Terra or any of its sensors and there is currently no official passivation (mission end) date.
For over two decades Terra has collected valuable data about Earth’s systems. In February 2020 Terra stopped doing platform maneuvers that would control its equator crossing time in order to maintain fuel for collision avoidance maneuvers. The remaining fuel will also be used to lower Terra’s orbit as part of its eventual passivation process. Now with the printed wire assemblies being returned to full function, Terra will be able to collect full data acquisitions from all five instruments throughout this process.
Terra will also continue collecting data after an orbit lowering maneuver planned for Fall 2022. The maneuver upholds agreements to ensure Terra is a safe distance from the other missions in the 705-km Earth Observing Satellite Constellation when fuel to maintain Terra’s orbit has been depleted.
“The science community views the changes in crossing time and orbit altitude as continuation of normal data collection for those products not affected by the orbital changes as well as an opportunity to do novel science with those that are affected,” according to Kurtis Thome, Terra Project Scientist. The Terra Project fully expects the Terra platform and all five instruments to operate past 2026 allowing them to maintain their status as leaders in Earth science data production. Terra’s long-term data record will continue to contribute to the Earth Science Division’s key science questions:
How is the global Earth system changing?
What causes these changes in the Earth system?
How will the Earth system change in the future?
How can Earth system science provide societal benefit?
Terra, the flagship Earth Observing Satellite, continues to be a leader in Earth science data, contributing to scientific research and applications worldwide, now with data capacity levels restored by a successful solid state recorder reboot.
A paper appearing recently in EOS shows
that Terra data is continually being used to test new modeling processes. In
this study, Terra cloud top height data was used as a tool to compare the
results of the superparamertization model to data from a day in April, 2012
over the Netherlands. The superparameterization model produced results that
more accurately depicted the cloud height data from Terra, than the standard
parameterized version of OpenIFS.
Worldview Snapshots is an easy-to-use application for rapidly producing images from daily MODIS and VIIRS global imagery.
Josh Blumenfeld, EOSDIS Science Writer
After almost 20 years, the Rapid Response system that was created to display daily satellite images is being retired. The good news is that a new system with greater capability and flexibility for producing these images is taking its place – Worldview Snapshots.
Worldview Snapshots is a lightweight application created by NASA’s Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS) Project for quickly making satellite images for any location on Earth (including the poles). Users can even configure the application to produce daily images of a specific area of interest, and images can be previewed and adjusted before they are downloaded. Based on the size of the geographic area selected, Worldview Snapshots even provides a suggested optimal image resolution from a drop-down menu.
Worldview Snapshots offers daily base layers from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)instrument aboard NASA’s Terra and Aqua Earth observing satellites as well as from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument aboard the joint NASA/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi-NPP) satellite. To keep Worldview Snapshots uncluttered and allow for rapid image creation, the application features only nine common MODIS and VIIRS base layers and only three overlays: fires (provided by the Land, Atmosphere Near real-time Capability for EOS [LANCE] system); coastlines; and coastlines, borders, and roads. If the fire overlay is selected, the fire overlay will be matched with the corresponding base layer. For example, if a Terra MODIS Corrected Reflectance base layer is chosen, the application will use the Terra MODIS Day Fires/Thermal Anomalies overlay.
The ESDIS Project created Worldview Snapshots using the same API that powers the Worldview data visualization application. In fact, imagery for both Worldview and Worldview Snapshots is provided through NASA’s Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS). However, while Worldview is designed for in-depth interactive exploration of satellite imagery using more than 800 layers (including the ability to compare imagery from different days and create animated GIFs of imagery covering several days), Worldview Snapshots is designed for the rapid creation of static images based on a limited menu of pre-defined settings. This makes Worldview Snapshots well-suited for users with limited internet bandwidth, such as users aboard research vessels or conducting research in remote areas. Want to explore a snapshot in more detail? A simple click of a button imports Worldview Snapshots settings into Worldview, where the image can be interactively explored in more detail.
Worldview Snapshots is a logical evolution of the Rapid Response system. When it was created in 2001, Rapid Response was designed to provide images created from Terra MODIS data shortly after a satellite overpass. These static images met the needs of the U.S. Forest Service, the National Interagency Fire Center, and other federal and state users. While lacking the processing and quality assessment required for scientific use, these near real-time images were perfect for monitoring and tracking ongoing events, such as wildfires or storms.
By 2007, Rapid Response had incorporated data and imagery from Aqua MODIS and was producing daily images of pre-defined areas. LANCE was developed in 2009 to deliver data and imagery from instruments aboard numerous Earth observing missions within three hours of a satellite overpass. The advent of global mapping services like Google Maps created a desire for interactive imagery for any point on Earth, not just the pre-defined Rapid Response images. As a result, an effort to create daily global MODIS imagery was initiated in 2011 along with the development of an application to allow users to interactively explore this imagery. The result was Worldview, which was introduced in December 2011.
The combination of Worldview Snapshots’ ability to quickly create images showing any location on Earth and Worldview’s ability to enable in-depth interactive exploration of daily global imagery provides users with an unmatched, integrated flexibility to explore the planet using NASA Earth observing data. See for yourself and create some snapshots today!
Image credit: NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and the U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team.
Terra and its sensors are back on line and collecting data. The ASTER team released this first light image. The area is in Queensland, Australia where the Elliott River meets the Pacific Ocean. To the south of the river is the Burrum Coast National Park, appearing deep red. The brighter red areas to the east of the National Park is farmland. North of the River is the small town of Elliott Heads with a population of less than 900 people.