Satellites Going Green - Page 1 of 4

Satellite has long played a high-value role in monitoring climate change, and the industry now is poised to play a role in the trend toward embracing "green" strategies and tactics. With a strong record of ingenuity and innovation in developing green efficiencies at lower cost, the satellite sector can provide a leadership role in using less energy with innovative approaches.

The debate over climate change continues to rage, with some arguing that forecasted growth in the population will place strains on the supplies of fuel and food, triggering an increase in hydrocarbons as food production increases to keep up with demand. As energy needs increase to satisfy the global need for food, climate change will become a greater reality. The counterargument is that there is not enough scientific evidence to back up these forecasts, and computer models have not provided the level of accuracy to determine if climate change is not just a fear tactic. According to DeWayne Cecil, chief of science applications for the U.S. Geological Service’s (USGS) Global Change Program Office, "to pick one (climate change model) of those that is the best is not appropriate, because it depends on what region you are looking at and what kind of data you have for input, so it’s a very complicated process. Those kinds of decisions that have to be made with our best estimate on how a climate is changing for a region are being made now with those decisionmakers at the table with the scientist and engineers. I think that’s a huge improvement, especially in the United States." Cecil acknowledges that "with ground sensors, coupled with satellite data, we can start looking at changes in greenhouse gases, changes in air temperature and changes in the precipitation patterns. Those are just a few ways that satellites are augmenting climate change data, and in some cases, satellites are the only or the best data that we have."

Can Orbiting Assets Determine the Truth?

NASA’s studies to date have not drawn a clear global profile of carbon dioxide. For example, is there a direct relationship between greenhouse gas and the rise in the average global temperature? Scientists state that 40 percent of the non-human emissions of carbon dioxide stay in the atmosphere and the rest are absorbed by the oceans and the soil but cannot state with any certainty where the carbon is going on the land masses. An attempt was made to correct this. Funded by the United States, France, and Canada, the Orbiting Carbon Observatory was designed to make the first space-based measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide and better define the carbon gaps or "sinks" and monitor changes in them. Unfortunately, the Orbiting Carbon Observatory, built by Orbital Sciences Corp. under contract to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, was destroyed in a February launch failure of Orbital’s Taurus launch vehicle. The spacecraft also was to operate as part of the Earth Observing System Afternoon Constellation, or A-Train, a formation of six satellites that included NASA’s Aqua, CloudSat, Calipso, Parasol and Aura spacecraft. The formation was intended to enable researchers to correlate data collected by the spacecraft.

While the data that would have been collected by the Orbiting Carbon Observatory cannot be replicated entirely, Japan’s Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite (Gosat), reached orbit in January. The spacecraft, built by Mitsubishi and operated by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, will measure sources of carbon dioxide. Gosat will record greenhouse gas emissions in 56,000 locations across the globe while orbiting the planet once every three days. An initial analysis of carbon dioxide and methane concentrations has been obtained during testing and validation of the spacecraft. Once Gosat is fully operational, the data will be updated every three days and analyzed by researchers at the Japanese Environment Ministry and the Japanese National Institute for Environmental Studies before being distributed freely to scientists around the globe.

The United States government also is funding multiple programs that will contribute to monitoring efforts. The final Polar Operational Environmental Satellite (POES) was launched in February for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The spacecraft, NOAA-19, provides measurements of reflected solar and radiated thermal energy from land, sea, clouds and the atmosphere; atmospheric soundings of temperature and humidity; measurements of global sea surface temperature, aerosol distribution data, ozone concentration data and soil moisture data. Additionally, POES satellites provide direct broadcast of environmental data worldwide.

POES will be replaced by the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS), which combines weather satellite operations operated by NOAA and the U.S. Air Force. A series of spacecraft developed by prime contractor Northrop Grumman will provide data to the international community to support weather forecasting as well as continuity of critical data for monitoring, understanding and predicting climate change and assessing the impacts of climate change on seasonal and longer time scales. Subcontractor Raytheon was involved in the development on Visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), the primary sensor for the operational NPOESS weather/climate satellites and NASA’s NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP). Some of the VIIRS Environmental Data Records will help in understanding and modeling global climate change. NOAA works routinely with NASA and the U.S. Department of Defense on current development efforts and on "addressing strategic ways to manage the program more effectively," says John Leslie, a spokesman for NOAA. "... Recent decisions have been made which provide NOAA a greater stake (in NPOESS) by using the data from the NPP satellite in an operational capacity. This is expected to provide NOAA with immediate improvements in its environmental satellite monitoring and imaging capabilities."