Saturn’s moon Enceladus offers a unique opportunity in the search for life and habitable environments beyond Earth, a key theme of the National Research Council’s 2013–2022 Decadal Survey. A plume of ...water vapor and ice spews from Enceladus’s south polar region. Cassini data suggest that this plume, sourced by a liquid reservoir beneath the moon’s icy crust, contain organics, salts, and water–rock interaction derivatives. Thus, the ingredients for life as we know it – liquid water, chemistry, and energy sources – are available in Enceladus’s subsurface ocean. We have only to sample the plumes to investigate this hidden ocean environment. We present a New Frontiers class, solar-powered Enceladus orbiter that would take advantage of this opportunity, Testing the Habitability of Enceladus’s Ocean (THEO). Developed by the 2015 Jet Propulsion Laboratory Planetary Science Summer School student participants under the guidance of TeamX, this mission concept includes remote sensing and in situ analyses with a mass spectrometer, a sub-mm radiometer–spectrometer, a camera, and two magnetometers. These instruments were selected to address four key questions for ascertaining the habitability of Enceladus’s ocean within the context of the moon’s geological activity: (1) how are the plumes and ocean connected? (2) are the abiotic conditions of the ocean suitable for habitability? (3) how stable is the ocean environment? (4) is there evidence of biological processes? By taking advantage of the opportunity Enceladus’s plumes offer, THEO represents a viable, solar-powered option for exploring a potentially habitable ocean world of the outer solar system.
To protect ecosystem services and the increasing wildland urban interface in a world with fire, comprehensive maps of wildland fuels are needed to predict fire behavior and effects. Traditionally, ...fuels have been categorized into a classification scheme whereby a single metric represents vegetation composition and structure, which can then be parameterized based on variable vegetation amount and condition. Remote sensing has been used to extrapolate between known field plots across the landscape, however until recently, those technologies have had limited ability to characterize fuels (e.g., composition, horizontal and vertical connectivity). Using new technologies (imaging spectroscopy and LIDAR), the objectives of this study are to assess: 1) how fuel characteristics observed from remote sensing affect categorical fuel classifications, and 2) how fuel characteristics affect landscape-scale fire behavior (spread rate, areal extent and perimeter). The analysis was conducted over the 2014 California King Fire that burned ~40,000 ha over lands with varying use and history and has unique remote sensing observations from before and after the fire. This analysis compares fuel classifications from a synergistic field, model, and Landsat approach (LANDFIRE) and products derived from the Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer and LIDAR (MapFUELS). Each classification focuses on different fuel characteristics, which were then used to compare differences in a fire simulation model (CAWFE) and actual fire behavior. The results show that fuel characteristic inputs such as horizontal connectivity or fuel type and vertical structure affect fire spread rate and final fire extent (respectively). These results present the opportunity for future integration of fuel characteristics observed at coarser resolutions (900 m2) into predictions of fire behavior a similar spatial resolutions (as opposed to the current standard based on empirical relationships between fuel and fire behavior at ~12 m2 resolution).
Observations of planet Earth from space are a critical resource for science and society. Satellite measurements represent very large investments and United States (US) agencies organize their effort ...to maximize the return on that investment. The US National Research Council conducts a survey of earth science and applications to prioritize observations for the coming decade. The most recent survey prioritized a visible to shortwave infrared imaging spectrometer and a multi-spectral thermal infrared imager to meet a range of needs for studying Surface Biology and Geology (SBG). SBG will be the premier integrated observatory for observing the emerging impacts of climate change by characterizing the diversity of plant life and resolving chemical and physiological signatures. It will address wildfire risk, behavior and recovery as well as responses to hazards such as oil spills, toxic minerals in minelands, harmful algal blooms, landslides, and other geological hazards. The SBG team analyzed needed instrument characteristics (spatial, temporal and spectral resolutions, measurement uncertainty) and assessed the cost, mass, power, volume, and risk of different architectures. We present an overview of the Research and Applications trade-study analysis of algorithms, calibration and validation needs, and societal applications with specifics of sub-studies detailed in other articles in this special collection. We provide a value framework to converge from hundreds down to three candidate architectures recommended for development. The analysis identified valuable opportunities for international collaboration to increase the revisit frequency, adding value for all partners, leading to a clear measurement strategy for an observing system architecture.
Wildfire has had increasing impacts on society as the climate changes and the wildland urban interface grows. As such, there is a demand for innovative solutions to help manage fire. Managing ...wildfire can include proactive fire management such as prescribed burning within constrained areas or advancements for reactive fire management (e.g., fire suppression). Because of the growing societal impact, the JPL BlueSky program sought to assess the current state of fire management and technology and determine areas with high return on investment. To accomplish this, we met with the national interagency Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) Advisory Group (UASAG) and with leading technology transfer experts for fire science and management applications. We provide an overview of the current state as well as an analysis of the impact, maturity and feasibility of integrating different technologies that can be developed by JPL. Based on the findings, the highest return on investment technologies for fire management are first to develop single micro-aerial vehicle (MAV) autonomy, autonomous sensing over fire, and the associated data and information system for active fire local environment mapping. Once this is completed for a single MAV, expanding the work to include many in a swarm would require further investment of distributed MAV autonomy and MAV swarm mechanics, but could greatly expand the breadth of application over large fires. Important to investing in these technologies will be in developing collaborations with the key influencers and champions for using UAS technology in fire management.
Over the past decade, there has been an increase in the use of NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS) data and imagery for time-sensitive applications such as monitoring wildfires, floods, and extreme ...weather events. In September 2016, NASA sponsored a workshop for data users, producers, and scientists to discuss the needs of time-sensitive science applications.
Saturn's moon Enceladus offers a unique opportunity in the search for life and habitable environments beyond Earth, a key theme of the National Research Council's 2013-2022 Decadal Survey. A plume of ...water vapor and ice spews from Enceladus's south polar region. Cassini data suggest that this plume, sourced by a liquid reservoir beneath the moon's icy crust, contain organics, salts, and water-rock interaction derivatives. Thus, the ingredients for life as we know it-- liquid water, chemistry, and energy sources-- are available in Enceladus's subsurface ocean. We have only to sample the plumes to investigate this hidden ocean environment. We present a New Frontiers class, solar-powered Enceladus orbiter that would take advantage of this opportunity, Testing the Habitability of Enceladus's Ocean (THEO). Developed by the 2015 Jet Propulsion Laboratory Planetary Science Summer School student participants under the guidance of TeamX, this mission concept includes remote sensing and in situ analyses with a mass spectrometer, a sub-mm radiometer-spectrometer, a camera, and two magnetometers. These instruments were selected to address four key questions for ascertaining the habitability of Enceladus's ocean within the context of the moon's geological activity: (1) How are the plumes and ocean connected? (2) Are the abiotic conditions of the ocean suitable for habitability? (3) How stable is the ocean environment? (4) Is there evidence of biological processes? By taking advantage of the opportunity Enceladus's plumes offer, THEO represents a viable, solar-powered option for exploring a potentially habitable ocean world of the outer solar system.
Abstract
Increasing fire impacts across North America are associated with climate and vegetation change, greater exposure through development expansion, and less-well studied but salient social ...vulnerabilities. We are at a critical moment in the contemporary human-fire relationship, with an urgent need to transition from emergency response to proactive measures that build sustainable communities, protect human health, and restore the use of fire necessary for maintaining ecosystem processes. We propose an integrated risk factor that includes fire and smoke hazard, exposure, and vulnerability as a method to identify ‘fires that matter’, that is, fires that have potentially devastating impacts on our communities. This approach enables pathways to delineate and prioritise science-informed planning strategies most likely to increase community resilience to fires.
This year two of NASA's Earth missions, Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2 (OCO‐2; http://oco.jpl.nasa.gov) and Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP; http://smap.jpl.nasa.gov), will collect data relating to ...water and carbon cycles at unprecedented spatial and temporal resolutions. Synthesizing these data provides unique opportunities for understanding interactions, patterns, underlying processes, and variability among climate, carbon, and hydrologic cycles.
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