2007 Annual Report

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

www.nasa.gov

NASA Earth Science Technology Office
Executive Su

As you will read in the pa

for Earth science technolo

(ESTO) graduated 15 tech

at least one Technology R

petitive solicitations adde

tems Technology (AIST) p

active and completed tec

ESTO also continues to bu

year 2007 (FY07), 9% of a

in science measurements

whole of ESTO’s portfolio 

nearly 30%.

ESTO’s success continues 

• a commitment to comp

• a focus on active techno

• a diverse research com

 100 organizations 

We continue to be very pr

the contributions they ma

another year of steady pr

George J. Komar 

On the cover:

Background image: Landsat image from 7/7/2001 shows the Jakobshavn Isbrae, Greenland’s largest 

outlet glacier (image credit: NASA). 

Four technology images (from top to bottom): 

1) The NASA Gulfstream III aircraft carrying the UAVSAR radar, in a custom-built pod under the aircraft’s 

fuselage, on a test flight over California (see page 5, image credit: Lori Losey); 2) One of several in-situ 

sensors that form the nodes of the Smart Sensor Web in Southeast Alaska (SEAMONSTER), a network 

that monitors the Lemon Glacier and Lemon Creek Watershed (see page 10, image credit: Logan Berner); 

3) Vertically exaggerated basal topography from an ice sheet in western Greenland as measured by the 

Global Ice Sheet Mapping Orbiter airborne prototype from an altitude of 650 meters at 150 MHz (see 

pages 6 - 7, image credit: Ken Jezek); 4) The Analog Radio-Frequency Interference Suppression System 

(ARFISS) electronics board (see page 9, image credit: Joseph Knuble). 
Contents

About ESTO ••••••••••••••••••••••• 1The Year in Review:  Overview •••••••••••••••••••••• 2 Instruments •••••••••••••••••••• 4 Special Feature: Toward New  Ice Sheet Measurements••••••• 6 Components ••••••••••••••••••• 8 Information Systems ••••••••••••• 10 Lasers •••••••••••••••••••••••• 12Future Challenges •••••••••••••••••• 14Additional Resources •••••••••••••••• 15

About ESTO

As the lethe Earth Science MScience Tforms stand manrange of ture scietional reqinvestmescience minstrumemake oband infothose obESTO’s adevelopm

• Plannin

througscienc

• Develo

compepartne

From instruments 

to data access, 

ESTO technologies enable a full 

range of scientific 

measurements

ii 
Year in Review: Overview

With more than 430 completed technology investments and a current, active portfolio of over 100 projects, ESTO is helping to build NASA’s reputation for developing and advancing leading-edge technologies. How did ESTO do this year? 

Here are few of our successes for fiscal year 2007 (FY07), tied to NASA’s performance goals for ESTO:GOAL: Annually advance 25% of funded technology projects one Technology Readiness Level (TRL). FY07 RESULT: 41% of funded technology projects advanced at least one TRL.

SPOTLIGHT: NSTC200ESTO expanded its annual gy conference this year to sessions and topics from aNASA Science Mission Direc– from Earth and Planetary to Heliophysics and Astropics. The NASA Science TechConference (NSTC2007) waJune at the University of Mand included nearly 140 tepapers in four parallel tracsessions. A Plenary talk waby Dr. John Mather, NASA trophysicist and Goddard Fluncheon talks were given Sridhar Anandakrishnan, AProfessor in the Penn State 

GOAL: Enable one new science measurement capability or significantly improve the performance of an existing one. FY07 RESULT: Several ESTO projects satisfied this goal for FY07. Two of these – the Global Ice Sheet Mapping Orbiter (GISMO) and the Pathfinder Air- borne Radar Ice Sounder (PARIS) – carry some additional significance during the observance of the International Polar Year. Both have greatly improved the ability to measure ice sheet thickness and bottom (basal) topography from airborne platforms. (Read more about these instruments on pages 6 and 7.) GOAL: Mature two to three technologies to the point where they can be demonstrated in space or in an operational environment.

FY07 RESULTS: Several techn

projects achieved actual infusFY07. Three examples:- The Earth Phenomena Obser

Systems (EPOS) is currently tional use by the Earth Obs(EO-1) satellite to pick cloudtargets. 

- The Heterogeneous Agricul

Research via Interactive, ScTechnology (HARVIST) projechosen by the U.S. DepartmAgriculture for use in analysalinity data from Red River soil measurements. 

- The Change Detection On-b

Processor (CDOP) project redemonstrated, in a laborato

2 

Each dot represents one of the over 520 projects (active and completed) in ESTO’s portfolio as of May 2007 

Percentage of Active Projects that Advanced at Least 1 TRL 0% 25% Goal FY99 FY00 FY05 FY07 FY01 FY02 FY06 FY03 FY04 Fiscal Year 26% 41% 35% 52% 39% 28% 39% 36% 41% 
The Uninhabited Aerial Vehi

project completed importanthe NASA Gulfstream III (G-IIcontinue through mid-2008, potential operational use on UAVSAR, a reconfigurable, pPropulsion Laboratory, is sprepeat pass SAR data for difRepeat pass interferometry to fly each pass as close to tfeat is achieved using a sophthe NASA Dryden Flight Resepath within a ten meter diamData collected by the UAVSAcompared to examine changEarth’s surface. The resultinare useful for a variety of scand earthquake activity, ice archeology.Once testing is complete, UAment that can provide the cimages scientists need to au

Year in Review: InstrumentsThe Instrument Incubator Program 

(IIP) provides funding for new instrument and measurement techniques, from concept development through breadboard and flight demonstrations. Instrument development of this scale outside of a flight project consistently leads to smaller, less resource intensive, and easier to build flight instruments. Furthermore, developing and validating these technologies before mission development improves their acceptance and infusion by mission planners, thereby significantly reducing costs and schedule uncertainties.

The IIP held some 31 active projects 

in FY07. More will be added in early 2008 – a new competitive solicitation released this year is broadly aimed at instrument development to address science measurement objectives put forward by the National Research Council decadal survey. These topics include: radiation balance; soil moisture; ice sheets; surface deformation; vegetation structure; land surface composition; carbon dioxide column integrals; water levels; atmospheric gases; ocean color; aerosol / cloud profiles; surface topography, temperature and humidity; gravity fields; snow accumulation; ozone and trace gases; and tropospheric winds. 

 The IIP also graduated four projects 

this year, all of which advanced at least 

4 

one technology readiness level over the course of their funding. The FY07 graduates are as follows:

• Inter-Spacecraft Laser Ranging Measurement Electronics for 

Sub-nanometer Accuracy

• Geostationary Spectrograph (GeoSpec) for Earth and Atmospheric Science Applications• Spaceborne Infrared Atmospheric Sounder for Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (SIRAS-G)• Interferometric Range Transceiver (IRT) for Measuring 

Temporal Gravity Variations

This water vapor mixing ratio time series was one of several datasets acquired during the first flights of the IIP-funded Raman Airborne Spectroscopic Lidar (RASL) in summer 2007. RASL, which can take profile measurements of water vapor and various aerosol and cloud properties, is proving to be an important asset, particularly since recent satellite data has shown increases in atmospheric moisture content that may be linked to climate change. The RASL measurement capability may also provide new understanding of water cycle processes, which is crucial for improving global weather and climate models.

SPOTLIGHT: UAVSAR P

The NASA G-III carries the Ubuilt pod under the aircraft

One of the first 

2007 in a flight o

The image co
Toward NEW Ice Sheet Measurements

In 2007, two independent IIP-funded projects shared the spotlight for demonstrating state-of-theart radar instruments in test flights over Greenland. Timed by coincidence to occur during the 

International Polar Year, the flights established these two instruments as key tools for future ice sheet thickness, layering, and basal (ice sheet bottom) topography measurements. Such measurements are sorely needed, especially over long time scales, for scientists to be able to accurately track and make predictions about changes in Earth’s ice sheets. These instrument demonstrations represent a large step toward a future space-based, Earth-observing radar system and the underlying technologies form the basis for instruments that could eventually measure the Mars ice sheet or map the ocean beneath the icy surface of Jupiter’s moon, Europa.

The Global Ice Sheet Mappin

airborne prototype designed btors from The Ohio State UnivKansas, the Jet Propulsion Lab completed a second round of tember 2007. GISMO was flowover Greenland’s varied glacieability to make three-dimensioof the thickness and base (baice sheet up to 5 km deep. 

GISMO employs VHF (150 MH

interferometric radars. Both fralternating flights during the from 500 m to 4,400 m. The data from the test flights to fu

Basal topography measured 

at 150 MHz from an altitu

meters above western Gre

2006. To show detail the s

here creates vertical exag

The NASA P-3 aircraft 

readying for a PARIS 

test flight. Note the 

antenna on the underside of the left wing.

6 

The Pathfinder Airborne Radar Ice Sounder (PARIS) instrument successfully 

completed 10 days of test flights and collected over 900 GB of data in May 2007 over northern Greenland. The PARIS radar, a 150 MHz airborne instrument built by a team from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, is designed to map the internal layering and basal topography of ice sheets from a high altitude.

Current ice-sheet sounding, as established through decades of field campaigns in 

Greenland and Antarctica, has been conducted exclusively from very low altitude platforms – either directly on the surface or at no more than 500 m high. On its test flights aboard the NASA P-3 aircraft, PARIS provided the first field demonstration of radar sounding of both ice sheet layering and basal topography from an airborne platform. The flights proved the feasibility of ice sounding from high altitudes (up to 8.5 km).

Data processing is ongoing but preliminary analysis shows the data collection 

was successful as the team has verified the signal return for bedrock – the basal signature. PARIS is in its third year of IIP funding.

Top: a radar track 

(bold yellow line) from 

a May 4th PARIS flight 

over northern Greenland. The red section 

corresponds to the 

‘first look’ data (bottom image) obtained 

from 1,500 ft.

tering techniques and algorithimages for the radar signature reliable, broad-scale measuresheets and glaciers, is of part

During the first round of test 

ward and to both sides along basal topography and ice sheeonstration of a simultaneous-down-looking SAR. 3-D proces450 MHz data from the 2007 ongoing. GISMO is in its third funding and receives additionfor radar development from thScience Foundation. 
Year in Review: Components

The Advanced Component Technology (ACT) program leads research, development, and testing of component- and subsystem-level technologies to advance the state-of-theart of instruments, Earth- and space-based platforms, and information systems. The ACT program focuses on projects that reduce risk, cost, size, mass, and development time of technologies to enable their eventual infusion into missions.In FY07, the ACT program held 15 active projects, 14 of which were selected in FY05 as part of the 2005 NASA ROSES (Research Opportunity for Space and Earth Science) solicitation. The solicitation focused on a range of instrument component and subsystem topics, including: highly compact and low power instrument electronics, detector array devices, active and passive microwave antennas and components, electronics for L- and Ku-band large aperture radar applications, micro-electromechanical filters, miniature / low power radiometers, and radio frequency interference mitigation, among others.The ACT program graduated two projects in FY07, both of which advanced two technology readiness levels:• Development and Verification of Technology for an Earth 

Observing Deployed Lidar Telescope

• Full Spectropolarimetric Validation and Performance Enhancements for the Hyperspectral Polarimeter for Aerosol 

Retrievals (HySPAR)

8 

SPOTLIGHT: Radio Fr

for Clearer Microwave 

The recently graduated Deployable Optics Modeling Experiments (DOME) project focused on develMicrowave radiometers use 

ment. As wireless communisensors can experience signAnalog Radio-Frequency IntGoddard Space Flight Centemitigate this radio frequenture instruments may lead ARFISS observes and analyzcan detect the difference besignals. Successful ground-using the Passive Active L-bARFISS design, which uses pallows the system to easily and space borne instrumentional systems. The ARFISS project is in its the electronics for possible 

oping the mechanical subsystems for a 6-petal deployable Lidar telescope (illustrated above). Large instruments often need to be deployed – unfolded, unrolled, or otherwise constructed – in space. The goal of this project was to ensure that these sensitive structures can be placed in exact, rigid positions. The photo below shows an apparatus built by the University of Colorado DOME project team to test the mechanical performance of a single petal.

A critical component for single-pass interferometric radar systems is a phase-stable two channel down-conversion receiver (at left are the two halves of a Ku-band downconverter, Ku-band section, top, and L-band section, bottom). This ACT project will define the state-ofthe-art in down-converter performance by providing unprecedented phase/amplitude stability and signal gain needed to achieve centimeter accuracy for kilometer resolutions in a small, off-the-shelf package.
Year in Review: In

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Advanced information systems are used to process, archive, access, visualize, and communicate science data. Advanced computing and communications concepts that permit the transmission and management of terabytes of data are essential to NASA’s vision of a virtually unified observational network. ESTO’s Advanced Information Systems Technology (AIST) program employs an end-to-end approach to evolve these critical technologies – from the space segment, where the information pipeline begins, to the end user, where knowledge is advanced.For the past two years, the AIST program has focused on the architecture and system building blocks needed for future autonomous sensor webs. 28 new projects were added in 2006 through a competitive solicitation targeted at sensor web enabling technologies. The AIST program is actively engaging these investigators through a series of workshops in order to achieve consensus on sensor web architectural principles and spur collaborations. The AIST program held 46 active investments in FY07, several of which graduated over the course of the year, including:

• Seamless Handover in Space Networks • Multi-Satellite Virtual Private Network for 

Space-Based Applications (SpaceVPN)

• An On-Board Processor for a Spaceborne 

Doppler Precipitation Radar

• Mission Automation for “A Train” Correlative Measurements Using the Earth Phenomena Observing Systems (EPOS) • Data Mining for Understanding the Dynamic Evolution of Land- Surface Variables: Technology Demonstration using the D2K Platform • A Reconfigurable Computing Environment for On-Board Data Reduction and Cloud Detection • On-Board Processor for Direct Distribution of Change Detection Data Products • HARVIST: Heterogeneous Agricultural Research via Interactive, Scalable Technology All of the FY07 AIST program graduates advanced at least one TRL over the course of their funding.

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The Earth Phenomena Obserautonomous, dynamic re-tasoperational use by EO-1. Dewith AIST funding, EPOS schEO-1, specifically the AdvanHyperion Imaging Spectromareas when those areas are cover. EPOS has demonstratscience value of a variety of technology can play a signifsensor web systems. EPOS can be broadly defined key capabilities: 1) informatning and execution. A web scover forecast inputs and tascientists at NASA and the Uthen generates an optimized instruments to target those operates autonomously with During initial testing, EPOS 77% for its target scheduling as an image with less than 2historical data, EPOS effectiber of imaging attempts by approximately 14% – a reduscientific value and cost.The underlying EPOS technoations in which there are muand/or a potentially large seA sensor web, along with the EPOS, could help to characteral events: severe weather, aice movement, seismic eventand rescue activities.SPOTLIGHT: EPOS Clea

The Smart Sensor Web in Southeast Alaska (SEAMONSTER) project is implementing a sensor web in the Lemon Creek watershed that monitors numerous physical parameters, including those related to climate, glacier dynamics, and water quality. SEAMONSTER will manage the power use of the in-situ sensors, monitor observed data, and autonomously respond and adapt to transient events of interest such as the catastrophic drainage of lakes that form at the top of Lemon Creek Glacier (above).
In FY07, the LRRP funded 14 projects at NASA Goddard 

Space Flight Center and NASA Langley Research Center. Partners and collaborators on these projects included: American University, Boston College, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Montana State University, Sandia National Laboratory, the University of Maryland, and numerous industrial partners. The investments also covered a broad range of laser/lidar challenge areas, including:• High-performance 1- and 2- Micron Lasers• High-reliability Pump Laser Diode Arrays• Space Radiation Tolerance• Frequency Control and Wavelength Conversion• Electrical Efficiency• Heat Removal and Thermal Management• Contamination Tolerance• Photoreceiver and Detector Development

Year in Review: Lasers

The Laser Risk Reduction Program (LRRP) was established in 2001 by the NASA administrator under the recommendation of the Earth Science Independent Laser Review Panel. The LRRP has worked to formalize design, testing, and development procedures for durable laser/lidar systems and architectures, particularly in the critical 1- and 2- micron wavelengths. Laser/lidar remote sensing techniques satisfy a variety of measurement and operational requirements:

Earth Science: Clouds/

 Aerosols, Tropospheric  Winds, Ozone, Carbon  Dioxide, Biomass, Water

Vapor, Land, Ice, and Ocean, Surface Mapping, and Laser Altimetry

Space Science: Surface 

 Materials, Physical State,  Surface Topography,  Molecular Species, and 

Atmospheric Composition / Dynamics

Exploration: Lander Guid- 

 ance/Control, Atmospheric  Winds, Biochemical Identifi-  cation, Optical Communication, and Automated Rendezvous & Docking

 Aeronautics: Turbulence 

 Detection, Wind Shear  Detection, and Wake  Vortices

An LRRP-funded team at the breaking, state-of-the-art soper pulse energy with excellamplifier system. The goal of this LRRP task wall-solid-state laser transmitfor global atmospheric wind tem for carbon dioxide meaThe laser gain medium usedtal, was defined by a previoCenter. When grown and tesdium over more conventionaFluoride) or Tm:Ho:YAG (Thtransmitter may be a key co

12 

SPOTLIGHT: World Re

2 Micron Laser

This custom vacuum chamber at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center has improved testing of laser diode arrays with 12 test positions with windows for continuous inspection.
Future Challenges Additional Res

Active Remote Sensing Technologies to enable measurements of the atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, and lithosphere.

• Atmospheric chemistry using lidar vertical profiles• Ice cap, glacier, sea ice, and snow characterization using radar and lidar• Tropospheric vector winds using lidar

In 2007, the National Research Council released a report entitled “Earth Science and Applications from Space: National Imperatives for the Next Decade and Beyond” that lays out a consensus vision and priorities for future Earth science endeavors. This ‘decadal survey’ advises, among other strategies, that the cost risk of future missions be reduced by “investing early in the technological challenges.”We recognize the importance of this statement. In fact, ESTO investments are currently buying down the risk of nearly all of the Earth science measurements recommended by the decadal survey. This is a testament to ESTO’s best practices for technology development: competitive, peer-reviewed solicitations; active technology management; and broad-based, inclusive strategic planning. ESTO continues to monitor and match investments to the evolving needs of the Earth science community.In addition to established technology goals, we have identified four areas that will serve a multitude of science disciplines:

14 

A wealth of additional materiaESTO home page – http://esto

Information about ESTO solicitations and awardsMore about the ESTO approach to technology development, ESTO programs, and strategic planning

Large Deployable Apertures to enable future weather, climate, and naturalhazards measurements.• Temperature, water vapor, and precipitation from geostationary orbit• Soil moisture and sea surface salinity using L-band• Surface deformation and vegetation using radar

Intelligent Distributed Systems using advanced communication, on-board radiation-tolerant reprogrammable processors, autonomous operations and network control, data compression, high density storage.• Long-term weather prediction linking observations to numerical models• Interconnected sensor webs that share information to enhance observationsInformation Knowledge Capture through novel visualizations, memory and storage advances, and seamlessly linked models. • Intelligent data fusion to merge multi-mission data• Discovery tools to extract knowledge from large and complex data sets• Real time science processing, archiving, and distribution of user products to 

drive decisionsupport systems

Abstracts, papers and presentations from the 2007 NASA Science Technology Conference (NSTC2007) as well as from previous ESTO conferences
Earth Science Technology Office

Goddard Space Flight Center

Greenbelt, MD 20771

http://esto.nasa.gov