The main driver for this OS travel was, together with Nicholas Coops, to represent CSIRO’s Hyperion activities at the EO1 sessions at IGARSS02. Nicholas and I attended many of the same sessions and so I will not repeat here those issues covered by Nicholas in his OS trip report. To take advantage of this OS travel, I organised a series of meetings, workshops and presentations with industry and government bodies in both Japan and Canada.

IGARSS02

Unlike IGARSS01, there was a lack of “geology” papers, which was a real disappointment for me and was further compounded by the fact that the minerals industry, even from Canada, stayed away. Not sure why though at my TIR workshop on the Monday of the IGARSS02 week, there were 12 attendees, of which all but one went directly home to all parts of Canada that evening. Nevertheless, there were many useful people to discuss different issues within the corridors at IGARSS02.

I attended the IGARSS02 EO1, Hyperspectral Instrumentation and Hyperspectral Processing and Analysis sessions as well as selected papers from other sessions. I was surprised at the high priority given to the issue of Hyperion destreaking during the EO1 session and in the corridors after. Some Hyperion SVT team members even presented applications papers from “homogeneous” test areas without any attempt to destreak, and at the end implored the audience for a solution. Obviously, there is some communication problem as useful solutions for this simple case (homogeneous test areas) have been around for 12 months. The same with the spectral smile (frown) effect, where I was frustrated to see oral papers presented on correcting spectral smile using MNF. Most frustrating! Good papers from the EO1 session include those by Nicholas Coops, and judging from the corridor chat after, Nicholas was one of the most impressive (and entertaining) speakers at the conference (Tumba-bloody-Rumba is now considered in a very different light).

The Hyperspectral Processing and Analysis session papers and panel discussion on atmospheric correction provided some useful information. When questioned about the next frontier for FLAASH, Tom Cooley from AFRL said that aerosol estimation and correction was the number one priority, a view of course shared by many of those in the EOC working on hyperspectral VNIR-SWIR data. As expected, the people at the University of Colorado are still looking for a commercial software partner to get HATCH finalised and out into the market.

At the Hyperspectral Remote Sensing Instrumentation session, there were papers on the European Hyperspectral Spectra mission and the Canadian Space Agency’s hyperspectral mission. Although Spectra will probably include comprehensive SWIR and TIR spectral coverage, the sales pitch at this presentation is very much on multiangle VNIR sensing for vegetation mapping. The CSA presentation described three options for a space-borne hyperspectral capability, one of which is base on the International Space Station, which may be the cheapest but least commercially attractive given its limited coverage (<30 degrees latitude) and other platform related issues. Anyway, sounds like a lot more will be discussed on this possibility.

TIR Workshops, Toronto

I presented two workshops on Monday the 24th June at the Falconbridge offices in Toronto. The first was “open” and was titled “Thermal Infrared Geological Sensing” and was attended by 12 geoscientists from Falconbridge, Noranda, Inco, Barrick, Techcominco and University of Alberta. Only sponsors to the TIR Munni Munni Project attended the second “closed” workshop, which was essentially a progress report. Both workshops were received very well. During these meetings, the status of the airborne ARGUS system and future deployments were discussed.


Japan

I had meetings in Tokyo with ERSDAC, MMAJ and Sumitomo as well as attending an ERSDAC Annual Science meeting. The full-day ERSDAC science meeting involved 150 Japanese remote sensing geoscientists and was unusual because in attendance were METI and cabinet officials. These government officials were apparently at the meeting to assess the need, interest and support for a follow on Earth observation satellite to TERRA-ASTER/PALSAR.

At the evening reception to this ERSDAC Science Meeting, where I had the honour to be the guest speaker, I was approached by ERSDAC and government officials to discuss whether Japan can work with Australia to jointly develop a satellite capability with a hyperspectral VNIR-SWIR sensor and an ASTER-II sensor. They said that the Japanese recognise:

1. Australia's long history (10 years) of working closely with the Japanese at both government and private industry levels;
2. Australia's expertise in hyperspectral technology development; and
3. Australia's desire and experiences to achieve a commercial satellite-based hyperspectral end-to-end capability (ARIES).

They also said, that unlike previous Japanese satellite systems, this new satellite will have a "commercial resource applications pull".

I also attended a half day meeting with ERSDAC staff. With regard to the CSIRO-ERSDAC satellite MOU, which currently sits within CEM, a number of issues were discussed:

1. ERSDAC (and METI) want to again include carbon accounting with ASTER (and hyperspectral). I had spoken with Peter Caccetta from CMIS, who is in charge of the AGO Landsat biomass mapping project here in Perth, both before I left for Japan and after, about the possibility of that group working with the Japanese on biomass mapping with ASTER. The ERSDAC people were already aware and respect the AGO activities as part of the Kyoto Greenhouse protocols and are keen to work with Peter and his group. Therefore, the CSIRO involvement would not just be CEM but also include CMIS (at the very least) taking the MOU delegation above a divisional level; and

2. As part of this MOU, ERSDAC will provide CSIRO and their related activities with as much ASTER data for free as well give any new requests for data collects very high priority. This is essential for mutlitemporal programs such as the AGO biomass mapping. They also want to provide software and processing (e.g. ASTER DEMs of Australia). They also want be involved in technology transfer of Japanese staff through collaborative science project (ERSDAC call these PIPs). We identified and agreed that an existing CEM project, namely the Curnamona ASTER project which also falls under Glass Earth and PMD, be the best vehicle to achieve this outcome this year on the minerals side.

Other meetings with Sumitomo an MMAJ in Tokyo focussed on developing a new suite of collaborative projects for this Japanese fiscal year.

Tom Cudahy,
4 July 2002