Planning for the establishment of a national centre for earth observation calibration and validation in Australia to assist in uplifting our existing capabilities and promote them domestically and internationally
The Challenge
Calibration and validation (cal/val) of Earth Observation (EO) data is an essential part of the EO data management pipeline and ensures that data is usable once it has been acquired by satellites or other remote sensing means. With the increase of commercial satellite development in Australia, cal/val throughout the lifecycle of mission development has become even more essential for enabling high-quality data. Australia has a number of existing cal/val sites and supersites, providing a rich resource of world-class infrastructure and cal-val datasets. However, the use of and information from these sites remain fragmented and some remain inaccessible outside of the scientific community. EO data is critical across a range of different Australian industries and sectors but its use can be constrained depending on the extent to which the data has been appropriately calibrated or validated. There is thus a growing need for a nationally coordinated approach to EO cal/val infrastructure, resources and expertise. A federated approach would maximise the value of existing infrastructure, while ensuring the integrity, trust and quality of data used for decision making.
Partners
This project was undertaken from July 2022 to June 2024, and was conducted for CSIRO by FrontierSI in partnership with Symbios.
The Solution
This project has supported CSIRO to plan for the establishment of a national centre for Earth Observation calibration and validation that aims to uplift Australia’s existing capabilities, support the development of new infrastructure and resources as well as assist in promoting Australia’s cal/val interests domestically & internationally.
Though this project FrontierSI and Symbios assisted CSIRO across the following activities:
- Prepared a business case and exploring operational models for a national cal/val centre,
- Interviewed selected industry, government and university stakeholders to better understand their cal/val needs,
- The responses and outcomes from the domestic stakeholder interviews are published in the following report: Australian Earth Observation Data Quality: Exploring the need for a coordinated calval network to support the commercial EO Sector
- Established a Technical Advisory Group for the centre and acted as a secretariate from April 2023 to June 2024.
- Explored the downstream impacts of poor data quality by conducting a literature review and case study examining CSIRO Habitat Condition Assessment System (HCAS) with support from the HCAS Team. The results are published in the report Impact of satellite data quality on EO-derived insights for decision-making
- Compiled a database of calibration and validation facilities and infrastructure in Australia, and explored the feasibility of additional complementary sites to address the needs of significant international missions.
- Established a centre website (landing page) ready for future promotion and stakeholder engagement.
Impact
Following the cancellation of the National Space Mission for Earth Observation in 2023, the project ensured immediate sustainment of CSIRO AusCalVal capabilities while exploring viable and sustainable investment for the AusCalVal centre in the longer term. Two publicly released reports developed during this project demonstrate the impact of satellite data quality on decision making, and make the case for a coordinated cal/val network to support Australian research and commercial EO missions, 100% of which will be cubesats or microsats. The project highlighted that Australian cal/val capabilities are critical for EO missions, their data pipeline, and derived-insights, for both domestic cubesat missions and international gold-standard missions. Implementation of recommendations would contribute to a shared community vision that downstream sectors can access high quality, reliable EO data, products and services, contributing to the confidence in and growth of domestic EO capabilities. Establishment of the Technical Advisory Group ensured buy-in from Australian cal/val institutions and operators to participate in and support a national cal/val effort. Continuous international stakeholder engagement and advocacy secured international partner support, and opened the door to discuss potential shared funding and operating options. Aggregation of cal/val site data on a single AusCalVal website will enable Australian (and international) EO sector stakeholders to access information about cal/val sites, to make better decisions about mission planning, and to develop better products and services for their own clients.
Contact
To learn more, contact FrontierSI at contact@frontiersi.com.au.
