EarthDaily Analytics Corp.|EarthDaily Analytics Corp.

Purpose

Thermal infrared images from satellites have applications that are increasingly important as the global climate changes, including detecting agricultural water use and crop health, environmental monitoring, and wildfire detection. Accurately imaging in these wavelengths is much more challenging than imaging visible light; the satellite and lens glow from blackbody radiation, causing errors in the product that must be carefully removed. Expensive large satellite missions accomplish this with complex calibration systems installed on the satellite. These satellites, due to construction expense, are few and coverage is not ideal for high-cadence monitoring. Multiple less expensive small satellites can achieve excellent coverage but cannot include significant on-board calibration because of mass and budget trade-offs. This work will develop sophisticated on-ground processing for thermal images using advanced modeling, comparison to ground monitoring stations and other satellites. This cutting-edge technology will be offered as part of the EarthPipeline Software as a Service, providing a new generation of small satellite operators with a significantly higher quality flow of this critical data.