June 2020 Update

On May 27th 2020, the Surface Biology and Geology study team hosted the second of three webinars being held in place of the previously planned third SBG community workshop. The goal of these webinars is to engage with the science and applications community to provide an update on the SBG architecture design and science valuation process and to solicit feedback prior to providing architecture recommendations to NASA Headquarters in July 2020. The first webinar on March 26 provided a high-level overview of the Research and Applications (R&A) activities and the status of the architecture study as it progressed from Phase 1 “Candidate Architectures” to Phase 2 “Architecture Assessment”. This second webinar, provided a more detailed view on how the R&A working groups provided input to the mission design sessions to evaluate the VSWIR and TIR architectural elements, which took place in April and May 2020 at NASA LaRC, JPL, GSFC, and ARC.

On May 27th 2020, the Surface Biology and Geology study team hosted the second of three webinars being held in place of the previously planned third SBG community workshop. The goal of these webinars is to engage with the science and applications community to provide an update on the SBG architecture design and science valuation process and to solicit feedback prior to providing architecture recommendations to NASA Headquarters in July 2020. The first webinar on March 26 provided a high-level overview of the Research and Applications (R&A) activities and the status of the architecture study as it progressed from Phase 1 “Candidate Architectures” to Phase 2 “Architecture Assessment”. This second webinar, provided a more detailed view on how the R&A working groups provided input to the mission design sessions to evaluate the VSWIR and TIR architectural elements, which took place in April and May 2020 at NASA LaRC, JPL, GSFC, and ARC.

Slides from the second webinar and a summary of the Q&A session are available here. 

With close to 200 participants, the second webinar began with opening statements from Dave Schimel (JPL, Co-Lead for R&A) and Sandra Cauffman (NASA HQ, Deputy Division Director for Earth Science). Ben Poulter (NASA GSFC, Co-Lead for R&A) presented on R&A inputs to the design sessions and Dave Bearden (JPL, Co-Lead for Phase 2) presented on the SBG architectural design and down selection process. The R&A presentation highlighted key themes from the four working groups and how these were used to guide the trade-decisions made during the mission design labs. For example, the algorithm’s working group carried out an assessment of how many algorithms can be achieved with the ‘threshold’ capability codes (ABAA and ABBA, for VSWIR and TIR, respectively), with a 4-micron band having a key role in achieving algorithms for volcanic activity. The applications working group highlighted how latency requirements of 24-hours can be achieved through event-driven or pointing capabilities to meet over 70% of the application needs and by taking advantage of international partnerships. The modeling working group has developed end-to-end traceability work flow to identify how errors emerge and propagate under various atmospheric, sun-sensor-geometry, and retrieval modes as a way to assess instrument model performance. The calibration and validation working group provided input to the design labs to consider vicarious, and on-board lunar and solar calibration for radiometric, thermal, spectral and geometric parameters.

Outputs from the mission design sessions including the cost, latency, revisit, and spectral, spatial, and radiometric performance parameters of the VSWIR and TIR architectural elements are now being evaluated. In the coming month, a detailed science appraisal of the architectural elements will be carried out as these elements are paired to provide NASA Headquarters with three feasible architectures including instrument, spacecraft, and ground data systems, as well as potential international partnerships that can carry out the hyperspectral VSWIR and multispectral TIR science objectives from the 2017 NASA Decadal Survey.

The third webinar will be held on July 15th at 12:00 EDT and will begin with a review of the science and applications metrics used to score architectures, followed by a presentation of the recommended options, including a preferred option and two high-value alternates.  The SBG team will review the process for community feedback, and NASA HQ staff, including Charles Webb, Associate Director for Flight Programs, Earth Science Division, who will discuss the next steps towards a mission confirmation review.

Prior to the 15 July event, summary information on the three final candidate architectures and a response form to facilitate written questions and feedback will be distributed to all registrants and be available on the SBG website (sbg.jpl.nasa.gov). There will also be opportunities for Q and A during the webinar itself.  All community inputs received in conjunction to the May and July webinars will be summarized and will be part of the final recommendation package transmitted to NASA HQ by the SBG team.

If you have not already registered, please register for the July 15 webinar here to ensure that you receive WebEx login details, timely updates, and other materials described above!  If you registered for the May 27 webinar, there is no need to register again.