Mon, 27 Aug 2007
Geoscience Australia is seeking feed back from the Australian MODIS community and would like to give you the opportunity to provide input to the product specification for Geoscience Australia's MODIS Composite Information products. The products are due for release within the financial year and we need your help to make them as relevant to the user community as possible.
To provide your input please download the draft Implementation Strategy document.
Enter your feedback in the space provided and/or - track changes - in the body of the text and forward to earth.observation@ga.gov.au .
We are specifically seeking feedback on five key areas which may impact your uptake or employment of our products including:
Please provide your input by Friday 21 September. Your feedback will be incorporated into a revised Implementation Strategy and redistributed to you by the end of September.
Fri, 17 Aug 2007
Following a temporary failure on 3 August (see story below), the direct broadcast function of the MODIS sensor on Terra was successfully returned its normal operational capacity on 17 August. This was achieved using the prime side of the X-band system, meaning there is still full redundancy on the B-side should the prime side malfunction permanently in the future. This returns the ACRES Sentinel Bushfire service and ACRES Online MODIS products to their full complement of MODIS data availability.
Direct reception of data from the Terra satellite by Geoscience Australia has been interrupted by the failure of the X-band Solid State Power Amplifier on board the spacecraft. NASA engineers estimate it may take up to 2 weeks to return to direct broadcast operation via backup instrumentation. Geoscience Australia downlinks MODIS data daily from the Terra and Aqua satellites. We have received no instrument data from Terra since orbit 40559 at 13:47:22 UTC 3 August 2007. The instrument failure has impacted on delivery of MODIS Terra hotspot information available on the Sentinel Bushfire Web service and ACRES MODIS Online imagery service. There is no interruption to direct reception of MODIS data from the Aqua spacecraft. We will advise of any significant updates to this situation as they become available.
Geoscience Australia is looking for bright motivated people to join the Remote Sensing Science and Strategy (RSS & S) project, that forms part of Australian Centre for Remote Sensing (ACRES).
This project leads remote sensing science within Geoscience Australia and actively develops applications building on ACRES archive to achieve Division objectives. The project provides advice to the Group Leader, Spatial Information Access and Remote Sensing (SIARS) on remote sensing strategic issues and maintains international science linkages that underpin Australia's public-good and Government remote sensing activities. These positions are currently advertised in the public service gazette and will be listed in The Australian newspaper on 11th August. For more information visit the Geoscience Australia recruitment page.
New positions for the group include:
An ACRES What's New RSS feed is now available to alert readers to updates and changes on the ACRES web site.
Due to the need for ACRES to update media writing facilities and maximise efficiency of this process, from the 1st of August, ACRES will cease offering products on CD-R. All products from this time will be offered on DVD-R with FTP online delivery options remaining unchanged. Fully imported products may still be supplied on CD-R depending on the supplier and product required. All information regarding media and other product information is available on the ACRES website at the products and services page.