Spectral Reflectance Newsletter #47
Weekly newsletter on Earth Observation
Level-2 News
Spiral Blue offers to run Your Code in Space [link]
“Australian startup Spiral Blue is inviting developers and researchers to run custom code on its SE-1 space-based computer.
Spiral Blue has tested its own machine-learning algorithms to crop clouds out of satellite imagery on SE-1. Vessel detection algorithms and customer code has also been tested.”
India-based EO Startup SatSure Raises $15M Series A Round [link]
“SatSure, which was founded in 2017 and based in Bengaluru, India, said this round will fund the company’s launch of four high resolution optical and multispectral satellites planned for the fourth quarter of 2025.”
Orbital Sidekick Shares First Images from Hyperspectral Satellites [link]
“Orbital Sidekick (OSK) shared the first images from its three hyperspectral satellites launched on two SpaceX rideshare missions earlier this year.
The satellites are the first in the GHOSt constellation, which stands for Global Hyperspectral Observation Satellite, and can capture 472 bands of light across the electromagnetic spectrum, in 8 meter resolution.”
Quant Data & Analytics to Leverage Satellogic Imagery in Saudi Arabia [link]
“Satellogic signed an agreement with Quant Data & Analytics, a Saudi provider of data solutions for real estate and retail sectors. Quant plans to use Satellogic’s high-resolution satellite imagery to serve the property tech landscape in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region.”
Planet Wins Contract with Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Asia [link]
“Planet Labs announced it has won a new contract with a Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Asia for its global daily monitoring solution.
The contract has a seven-figure annual contract value (“ACV”). The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is a new customer for Planet and the contract was won through one of Planet’s partners in the region.”
As two landmark climate satellites go dark, NASA scales back their planned successor [link]
“NASA downgraded plans for its next-generation climate mission, a suite of satellites dubbed the Atmosphere Observing System (AOS).
Cuts to Atmosphere Observing System could degrade measures of clouds and pollution.”
Snapshots
Methane emissions from the Mavrorachi Landfill in Northern Greece [link]
“A NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory satellite detected methane emissions from the Mavrorachi Landfill in Northern Greece. The satellite observations, carried out by EMIT and processed by Carbon Mapper, reveal that more than 2 tonnes of methane are emitted from the landfill every hour.”
Carbon Mapper portal [link]
Fires in Greece
Wildfires continue to rage in Greece [link]
“A month after fires ravaged the island of Rhodes in July 2023, more fires have ripped through Greece this week as southern Europe swelters under a late summer heatwave. This Copernicus Sentinel-2 image shows the ongoing blaze near Alexandroupoli in the Evros region of northeast Greece — close to the Türkiye border.”
Large wildfire burning near Alexandroupolis, Greece [link]
“Imagery from August 21, 2023, shows the extent of the fires that continue to threaten residents. Firefighting aircraft can be seen operating in the area attempting to control the blaze.”
Wildfires Rage in Greece [link]
“A fire in the country’s northeast near Alexandroupolis produced a plume of smoke that stretched hundreds of miles southwest toward Italy.
Smaller plumes are visible from other fires burning elsewhere across the nation.”
Interesting reads
Going beyond the map: Introducing Environment APIs [link]
Follow this post to learn more about the new suite of Environment APIs that Google has introduced in the Google Maps Platform: Solar, Air Quality, and Pollen.
“These APIs help developers better understand an ever-changing world so they can create new sustainability tools, share actionable insights, and encourage people to adapt to new environmental realities.”
Water Management for a Sustainable Future [link]
In this article you’ll find projects that support water management and water protection at Development Seed. From deriving water health indicators to detecting oils spills and supraglacial lakes, earth observation data are crucial towards a water-resilient worlds.
Related:
Segmenting Supraglacial Lakes with PlanetScope [link]
Supraglacial segmentation on GitHub [link]
Deep Learning-based Hurricane Intensity Estimator [link]
NASA Maps Key Heat Wave Differences in Southern California [link]
“Like much of the planet, Southern California is expected to experience more heat waves in the future due to Earth’s changing climate. And some of these will feel increasingly humid, as long-term forecasts call for muggy spells more typically associated with Florida or eastern Texas.
To begin to understand what these changes could mean across the greater Los Angeles area, scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California mapped how extreme heat and humidity patterns vary with regional geography. The results underscore how air temperature alone does not tell the full story of dangerous heat.”
TEMPO — Nitrogen Dioxide Air Pollution Over North America [link]
“The Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) instrument collected its “first light” measurements of nitrogen dioxide air pollution over North America on August 2, 2023.
TEMPO measures sunlight reflected and scattered off the Earth’s surface, clouds and the atmosphere. Gases in the atmosphere absorb the sunlight, and the resulting spectra are then used to determine the amounts of several gases in the Earth’s atmosphere, including nitrogen dioxide.”
Upcoming Events
Space for Climate Action Trainings [link]
“These online courses aim to raise awareness of how space applications support climate action and to enhance participants’ capabilities to use them, as well as support budding entrepreneurs in developing a sustainable business plan around climate action.”
Call for proposals
Living Planet Fellowship call for proposals 2023 [link]
“The LPF aims at supporting the new generation of scientists in ESA Member States to undertake cutting-edge research in Earth Observation and Earth System Science, maximise the scientific impact of ESA missions and European EO capacity and respond to the main challenges of the ESA science strategy.”
Open call 28th August 2023
Submission of Proposals 27th October 2023
Communication of Results (tentative) 4th Quarter 2023
Beginning of Activities (tentative) 1st Quarter 2024
Learning
2023 InSAR Processing and Analysis (ISCE+) Short Course [link]
Learn how to use the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory InSAR Scientific Computing Environment (ISCE), ARIA-tools, MintPy and other InSAR processing and analysis tools.
Jupyter notebooks and presentations [link]