Intelligent Satellite Notices Volcanic Activity

Dik Zak points us to this NASA page about a new generation of intelligent Earth observation satellites. From the article: "The Indonesian volcano Talang on the island of Sumatra had been dormant for centuries when, in April 2005, it suddenly rumbled to life. A plume of smoke rose 1000 meters high and nearby villages were covered in ash. Fearing a major eruption, local authorities began evacuating 40,000 people. UN officials, meanwhile, issued a call for help: Volcanologists should begin monitoring Talang at once. Little did they know that, high above Earth, a small satellite was already watching the volcano. No one had told it to. EO-1 (short for "Earth Observing 1") noticed the warning signs and started monitoring Talang on its own. Indeed, by the time many volcanologists were reading their emails from the UN, 'EO-1 already had data,' says Steve Chien, leader of JPL's Artificial Intelligence Group."

Re:It was December the 3rd

[Anonymous Coward]

What I want to know is if all this processing actually occurs onboard the sat, or if its a land based super computer brain? Are these machines by chance running Linux? or are they using another VX-Works OS?

EO-1 has a couple of 12Mhz MIPS processors running vxWorks. The processor is similar to the CPU in the Playstation 1.

DoD Funded

[Wyatt Earp]

This sort of thing is being funded under the next-generation space reconnaissance satellite programs for the follow-on programs for the KH-11/12 and Lacrosse birds as well as the sats used to detect IR plumes of rockets and nuclear detonations.

I saw it in Janes a while back, no time to find sources right now, working on papers for Grad School.

Re:Inefficient use of funds

[xmundt]

Greetings aqnd Salutations

        Hum...$100 million sounds like a lot on an individual basis, but, in terms of the entire budget it is closer to what falls on the floor from the change pocket. In 1998, the budget spent on "secret" programs was $28 BILLION. That is, unless I am confused $28,000 million, and that is not even the BIGGEST money sink in the federal goverment.

        Why should we spend money on the arts? well, I believe it is because the LOSS of that facet of life will leave us a poorer and less capable civilization. Not all expression of creativity is appreciated enough to keep the artist alive and able to produce, but, there is always the chance that this will change when society advances enough to understand that point of view and appreciate it fully. It has happened before and it will happen again.

          Now, I also think that a larger chunk of funds should go to National Public Radio, mainly because it COULD be a truely neutral voice that speaks without the agenda (hidden or otherwise) that seems to infect so much of the commercial broadcasters. One thing that used to tell me that NPR was doing its job very well was how it irritated EVERYONE at some point in time. I heard conservatives cursing it for its obvious liberal bias, and I heard liberals complaining about its almost reactionary conservative attitudes. I do not agree or like everything I hear on public broadcasting, but, I know that the erosion of that support over the past decade or two has also left AMerica a poorer place.

        Regards

        Dave Mundt

Re:Inefficient use of funds

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, let's see what we know about all this:

From the following pages:
[1] http://www.spaceandtech.com/spacedata/logs/2000/20 00-075a_eo-1_sumpub.shtml [spaceandtech.com]
[2] http://eo1.usgs.gov/index.php [usgs.gov]
[3] http://eo1.usgs.gov/products.php [usgs.gov]
[4] http://nmp.jpl.nasa.gov/st6/ABOUT/About_index.html [nasa.gov]

The Earth Observation 1 satellite was launched on the 21st of November 2001, to validate technology for the Landsat Data Continuity Mission. The satellite cost $193'000'000. As the mission approached its end, interest was expressed in keeping it up there to gather more pictures, and an agreement was formed between NASA and the United States Geological Survey to continue the EO-1 Program as an extended mission. Later, in early 2004, the group responsible for the original sending of the satellite decided to try a new thing called the "Autonomous Sciencecraft Experiment". This is the what the article above is talking about. So, they beam their program to the satellite, and make more than 100 photos while the thing is autonomous, tweaking the program many, many times in between. One of them happened to be useful and noticeable, and NASA made an article about it for the sake of PR. Now, according to [3], taking a single photo costs at most 500$, and that's with a bunch of add-ons. If by "more than 100" they mean 150 shots, that's still only 75'000$. In short, they used a satellite that should have sunk into disuse years before to test and tweak some AI using real data and a real satellite. I'd say that's actually a very efficient use of money. I mean, compared to sending yet another satellite just to do these experiments.

Re:Inefficient use of funds

[Remus Shepherd]

EO-1 [usgs.gov] was a technology demonstration in *many* ways. It has a couple new type of sensors, a new bus, and yes -- new heuristic detection algorithms, although I don't think those were in the original specs when it was launched. It was not by any stretch of the imagination a waste of money. It is likely to be the progenitor for the next generation of Landsat-type sensors, and the next generation would not have been possible if not for this technology test.

You may also be interested in knowing that EO-1's mission was just one year long; that's all they needed, just to get it into orbit and test the new equipment. The fact that it's still running after *six* years goes to show how marvelous -- and cost efficient -- this bird is.