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NASA eyes
Hawaii’s skies for
satellite images

Maui is the test site for
a program to produce
cloud-free images of Earth

By Helen Altonn
Star-Bulletin

Hawaii researchers are developing technology to produce cloud-free satellite images of the Pacific.

The goal: To help emergency managers respond faster and more effectively to tsunamis, earthquakes, flooding, wildfires, volcanic activity and other natural disasters.

Maui is the test location for the NASA-sponsored project.

The Research Corporation of the University of Hawaii's "Disaster Management Datamart" is one of nine "Infomart" projects awarded nationally by Raytheon Co. as part of NASA's Earth Observing System Data and Information System Synergy Program.

Raytheon is responsible for processing, storage, distribution and retrieval of information in the earth-observing program.

The Pacific Disaster Center in Kihei, Maui, is participating.

State Civil Defense and Federal Emergency Management officials will be among those using the information to improve disaster response.

Raytheon's Infomart is intended to make data accessible to diverse users from remote sensors such as NASA's earth-observing system or commercial vendors, such as Space Imaging Inc.'s IKONOS satellite.

Peter Mouginis-Mark, UH Institute of Geophysics & Planetology professor and chief scientist at the Pacific Disaster Center, has long been concerned with applying remote sensing to disaster management.

As part of its Infomart, the project is developing a computer algorithm to generate a cloud-free Landsat 7 mosaic of the eight Hawaiian Islands.

"This project will enable disaster managers anywhere around the Pacific to obtain an essentially cloud-free, high-resolution satellite image of their geographic area of interest," Mouginis-Mark said.

"This image could be generated 'on demand' using the most recent data available," he said, stressing benefits for disaster management. "We will be able to offer a valuable new tool to the disaster manager, thereby speeding up their relief efforts to assist the general public, the state and the federal government."

Much data available

Gregg Jones, working with the Research Corporation of the University of Hawaii and Pacific Disaster Center as the Washington, D.C., liaison for ACS (Affiliated Computer Services) Defense, said Raytheon conceived the Infomart projects to make better use of the huge volume of data pouring from satellites.

"We're just scratching the surface," he said in a telephone interview from his Alexandria, Va., office. "It's almost overwhelming."

He said Mouginis-Mark and others are working on the technical side while he is trying to pull together the desires, requirements and needs of emergency managers.

"It's not a small technical challenge," Jones said, pointing out much of the Pacific is obscured by clouds much of the time.

"It's simply not visible when the bird flies over it. We've got kind of a complex, nightmarish jigsaw puzzle."

The first challenge, Jones said, is to be able to tell the satellite camera when it should image a certain point on the Earth.

And if a cloud is in the way, he said, "How do you have the methodology to build pixel by pixel a macro-photograph that has all the clouds taken away?

He said one possible system enables the camera to discern whether it is getting a good or bad picture of whatever it's pointed at.

"It has to select the good picture and put it in the overall puzzle, so gradually you build a mosaic in the literal sense of the term, an overall image that is cloud free."

Practical technology

The disaster center is building the technology to test on Maui and expand later across the Hawaiian chain, Jones said.

"Then, we hope we have learned enough by the next phase of the project that we can take a stab at the large Pacific Ocean."

Rita Bergman, manager of the NASA earth-observing program, said the project "is a great example of our vision for extending the use of satellite images for practical application."

About 40 people are associated with the project, mostly on Maui, Jones said.

The federally supported disaster center, established in 1995, is the only operational emergency management center in the world, he noted.

The main facility is on Maui, with disaster center personnel located at the State Civil Defense Emergency Operating Center at Diamond Head on Oahu.

"We at this company (ACS Defense) are very proud of it," Jones said. "We designed and built it for government ... Our folks are the best in the world at what they do."

The center generates information to help emergency mangers in the Pacific region prepare for disasters and eliminate or reduce the effects.

Ultimately, if the project achieves the technology it's seeking, Jones said, "and indications are strong now that we're going to make it, the PDC will shift from being more or less a test bed laboratory ... into a library maybe."

It will have the ability to take, process and store data and generate products and services for use in emergency management, he said.