Image of the Chukchi Sea acquired on June 18, 2018, by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on the Landsat 8 satellite. Photo: NASA, U. S. Geological Survey, Norman Kuring, Kathryn Hansen

NASA is promoting a new toolkit that will make it easier for commercial companies than ever to search, utilize and analyze data that NASA produces. Previously, free and open remote-sensing data has long benefited the scientific community, other government agencies, and nonprofit organizations — but hasn’t been used in the commercial sector. NASA’s Technology Transfer program recently debuted its Remote Sensing Toolkit, an online resource to promote the commercial use of remote sensing data and the software tools needed to work with it.

The toolkit allows users to find, analyze, and utilize data for their research, business projects, or conservation efforts. The toolkit will help users search for data, as well as ready-to-use tools and code for building new tools.

“This new tool makes finding and using NASA satellite data easier than ever before, and we hope it sparks innovation among the entrepreneurial community and leads to further commercialization of NASA technology,” said NASA Technology Transfer Program Executive Daniel Lockney.