Updates from NASA (1) This is a time of transition and potential for change.

1. Updates from NASA (1) • This is a time of transition and potential for change. • NASA is part of the Executive branch, and as civil servants we are charged with doing what our best for the nation, under the direction of the President as chief executive subject to the guidance and funding provided by Congress. • A transition team for NASA has been named and is now partially in place.   • There is much turnover in NASA upper management (eg. New Assoc Admin for SMD) and there will be a new Administrator (TBD) • In addition, the new administration and new congress will have input into the FY17 NASA budget and priorities as the current CR runs til the end of April, so many things may change very quickly. • There is much uncertainty regarding what the new administration (and congress) might wish of NASA, particularly with respect to Earth Science and specifically the climate aspects. • Depending upon how that plays out, NISAR might seem to be somewhat immune to that consideration, but this should definitely not be taken for granted.  A major upheaval is very likely to impact NISAR. • Consequently, it is incumbent upon this community to be: • Aware of the situation • Work to communicate the value of geodesy and geodetic imaging (like NISAR) to a variety of critical national interests through providing materials for relevant community websites, publications, conversations, potential briefing packages, op-ed pieces.  Many of these need to be relayed in simple language that speak to opportunity, necessity and benefit. • This should be considered an important activity over the next 3-6 months.

2. Updates from NASA (2) • On airborne SAR: • UAVSAR (L-band) has had another remarkable year despite some difficulties with aircraft maintenance issues. • While a final decision has yet to be made, it is very likely that AirMOSS (P-band) and the Ka-band GLISTIN-A will become part of the NASA facility instrument family (under some rebranding).  This will mean that all three will have a common flight request, operations, and processing environment and be operated on G-III (at AFRC or JSC) with subsidized flight hour support.   • Airborne science has recently procured use of a G5 at JSC, and the UAVSAR project is considering how to adapt/evolve the UAVSAR family to that platform.  This is likely to incorporate skin mounted or blisters for antennas at a number of frequencies.  People with thoughts or ideas on how UAVSAR should evolve are encouraged to talk to Yunling Lou and/or Scott Hensely at JPL. • UAVSAR project and the ASF DAAC are considering the value and implications of supporting UAVSAR stack processing at ASF.  The community should be vocal about this and communicate directly to Dobson, UAVSAR project, and/or ASF (perhaps via the ASF DAAC User Working Group).  You can ask members of the ASF-UWG to raise their hands. • Remind the audience to take a good look at the AIST solicitation now on the street.  There are some specific references to SAR and calibration that should be of interest to the community.

3. Updates from NASA (3) • On international SAR: • Agreement with CONAE on SAOCOM is still under discussion, don’t expect this to be finalized this calendar year.   • No new discussions with JAXA on ALOS. • NASA provision of EU Copernicus, Sentinel 1-A/B data has been very successful!  Feedback on this to NASA HQ and ASF DAAC is much appreciated. • NASA has an active collaboration with ESA on SAR missions, of primary initial interest is NISAR and BIOMASS for algorithm development and cal/val.  A joint airborne campaign including UAVSAR and LVIS was conducted in Gabon over the last year with flights also by DLR (F-SAR) and ONERA (SETHI).  In addition, NASA has representation on the BIOMASS MAG (Saatchi) and the SAOCOM-CS (Companion Satellite) being developed by ESA for coflight with SAOCOM-1B (our representative on this MAG is Marco Lavalle at JPL).  Finally, NASA has been interacting with ESA concerning the potential for collaboration on SAR/InSAR ground segment via a multi-mission exploitation platform.  

4. Updates from NASA (4) • On NISAR: • Paul Rosen will be providing updates on the project and SDT activities. • From a program prospective, • NISAR has transitioned to Phase C in October (NASA speak for moving from formulation into development).  This is a major step forward and kudos to the project team.  Applause! • A new science definition team (SDT) was named in late spring.  It is 1/3 larger than the previous SDT and now includes significant representation of application areas not previously part of the SDT.  You could ask SDT members to raise hands.  These SDT members are your (the community) representatives to the NISAR program (at HQ) and the NISAR project (at JPL).  Talk to them.  The new SDT has already done a commendable job stepping up the task at hand. • A NISAR Science Team, will be competed in about 2 years. • The community should look carefully at upcoming solicitations in various program areas for SAR/InSAR relevant research opportunities as we work to take advantage of the international SAR/InSAR data streams and the airborne program to prepare for NISAR. • Finally, of course, express amazement and wonder at the glorious work that this community has been doing, encourage them to keep up the fantastic effort, share results and ideas with HQ, and to not take anything for granted in this time of transition.