Attachment 2 Recovery Act Earth Science Instrumentation Development- airborne Network Infrastructure

One of the mandated activities under the NASA Earth Science portion of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) includes, “advancing the understanding of scientific questions with a robust, integrated program of airborne measurements, scientific research and applications and technology development.” Directly relevant to this mandate, this task is a research and development effort to provide systems engineering and system integration to demonstrate a real-time airborne science data network that creates the potential for mission scientists to monitor and direct multiple platforms (manned and Unmanned Aircraft Systems or UASs) interactively while observing the data as they are as acquired during an experiment. The capability to connect multiple real-time data streams from airborne systems to the ground, coupled with information from on-orbit assets will result in more efficient use of assets, produce more useful measurements during multi-aircraft science campaigns, and further the utility of NASA science data in understanding Earth system processes.

The product of this task will be a prototype aircraft data network that can be used to transfer instrument data in near real-time between aircraft, satellites and the ground. The current capability for providing onboard telemetry to the ground using IRIDIUM satcom is limited to 9.6kbs while this new system is anticipated to enable data rates of at least 500kbs. Under this task, hardware and software will be developed to create an initial version of this system that will serve as a model upon which future systems can be based. Such a capability, if demonstrated, would significantly advance NASA’s ability to gather better measurements of earth system processes that are difficult to predict and model lending to difficulties in collecting measurements. By improving the flow of timely information to science teams and aircraft operations teams, assets can be guided to optimal sampling domains, increasing the utility and efficiency of NASA projects.

Task Summary

This task supports NASA Recovery Act work sponsored by the Science Mission Directorate and the Earth Science Research & Applications Program. NASA Earth Science program studies Earth from space to advance scientific understanding and meet societal needs. The key goals of this Recovery Act funding are to significantly improve the analytical capabilities of researchers studying the Earth and its climate. This project will build and demonstrate a prototype information network that will link NASA science aircraft with satellites and ground participants. This system will enable new observations of earth science phenomena by enabling real-time response and tasking based upon evolving situations observed from various vantage points and temporal coverages of the component nodes.