{"id":11654,"date":"2021-05-26T20:01:23","date_gmt":"2021-05-26T12:01:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/nasa-to-develop-2-5-billion-five-satellite-earth-system-observatory\/"},"modified":"2021-05-26T20:01:23","modified_gmt":"2021-05-26T12:01:23","slug":"nasa-to-develop-2-5-billion-five-satellite-earth-system-observatory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/nasa-to-develop-2-5-billion-five-satellite-earth-system-observatory\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA to develop $2.5 billion, five-satellite Earth System Observatory"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
An astronaut on the International Space Station took this picture during an orbital sunrise in April 2021. Credit: NASA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Biden administration announced this week that NASA will develop a series of five Earth science satellite missions over the next decade, part of a $2.5 billion program called the Earth System Observatory to collect climate and geological data identified as priorities in a 2018 decadal survey.<\/p>\n

The first Earth System Observatory project \u2014 the joint U.S.-Indian NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar, or NISAR, mission \u2014 has been in development since 2014 and is scheduled for launch in January 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cA major Biden administration priority is climate change, and as our eyes in the sky, NASA has a big role to play,\u201d said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson in a joint meeting Tuesday of the National Academies\u2019 Space Studies Board and Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board. \u201cSimply put, if you want to mitigate climate change, you\u2019ve got to measure it. And, of course, that is what NASA is doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

NISAR will combine L-band and S-band radars on the same spacecraft to measure changes on Earth\u2019s surface smaller than a half-inch, or 1 centimeter. The NISAR mission will observe the flow rates of glaciers, the collapse of ice sheets, and the dynamics of earthquakes, volcanoes, and landslides, according to NASA.<\/p>\n

NASA is supplying the NISAR mission\u2019s L-band radar, a high-rate communications system, and data storage systems. India is building the S-band radar, the spacecraft bus, and the launch vehicle for NISAR.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the number of extreme weather events increases due to climate change, the ability to forecast and monitor natural disasters is integral for the nation\u2019s preparation, mitigation, and resilience,\u201d the White House said in a fact sheet released Monday outlining the Earth System Observatory.<\/p>\n

The White House said the five-satellite program \u201cwill be a new architecture of advanced space borne Earth observation systems, providing the world with an unprecedented understanding of the critical interactions between Earth\u2019s atmosphere, land, ocean, and ice processes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese processes determine how the changing climate will play out at regional and local levels, on near and long-term time scales,\u201d the White House said.<\/p>\n

The announcement of NASA\u2019s Earth System Observatory Monday came at the same time as the Biden administration said it will provide $1 billion through the Federal Emergency Management Agency to support states, local communities, tribes, and territories in pre-disaster hazard mitigation projects.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Artist\u2019s concept of the joint U.S.-Indian NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar, or NISAR, satellite scheduled for launch in 2023. Credit: NASA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Nelson said Tuesday that NASA will develop the the Earth System Observatory missions over the next decade.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn that decade, we\u2019re going to spend about $2.5 billion,\u201d Nelson said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to launch five spacecraft, the first of which will be in January of 2023, so it\u2019s only a year and a half away, and it\u2019s going to be a joint mission with India. That particular mission is going to concentrate on earthquakes, on lava flows, on volcanoes, on ice breaking off, major shifts.\u201d<\/p>\n

NASA currently has 23 Earth science observing missions in orbit, including six instruments operating on the International Space Station.<\/p>\n

Nelson said the Earth System Observatory is \u201cgoing to bring us up to another magnitude of observing the Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to NASA, areas of focus for the observatory include:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Aerosols: Answering the critical question of how aerosols affect the global energy balance, a key source of uncertainty in predicting climate change.<\/li>\n
  • Cloud, Convection, and Precipitation: Tackling the largest sources of uncertainty in future projections of climate change, air quality forecasting, and prediction of severe weather.<\/li>\n
  • Mass Change: Providing drought assessment and forecasting, associated planning for water use for agriculture, as well as supporting natural hazard response.<\/li>\n
  • Surface Biology and Geology: Understanding climate changes that impact food and agriculture, habitation, and natural resources, by answering open questions about the fluxes of carbon, water, nutrients, and energy within and between ecosystems and the atmosphere, the ocean, and the Earth.<\/li>\n
  • Surface Deformation and Change: Quantifying models of sea-level and landscape change driven by climate change, hazard forecasts, and disaster impact assessments, including dynamics of earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides, glaciers, groundwater, and Earth\u2019s interior.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    \u201cThe bottom line of this is it\u2019s going give a 3D view of the Earth from the atmosphere to the bedrock,\u201d Nelson said.<\/p>\n

    A panel of researchers from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine identified the Earth science priorities in the most recent decadal survey released in 2018.<\/p>\n

    The Trump administration proposed canceling multiple NASA Earth science missions, but Congress continued funding the projects. President Biden\u2019s first budget request proposes $2.3 billion for NASA\u2019s Earth science programs in fiscal year 2022, an increase of $250 million over the 2021 funding level.<\/p>\n

    The Earth science funding presumably includes money for the Earth System Observatory missions. Details of the Biden administration\u2019s fiscal year 2022 budget request will be released Friday.<\/p>\n

    Congress will determine NASA\u2019s final budget for 2022.<\/p>\n

    An overview of the budget proposal released last month shows the White House plans to ask Congress for $24.7 billion for NASA in fiscal year 2022, $1.5 billion above the 2021 budget.<\/p>\n

    Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

    Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    An astronaut on the International Space Station took this picture during an orbital sunrise in April 2021. Credit: NASA The Biden administration announced this week that NASA will develop a series of five Earth science satellite missions over the next decade, part of a $2.5 billion program called the Earth System Observatory to collect climate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11654"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11654\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}