(MAPLD Conference)
A0: Dennis Andrucyk
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
"Achieving the Earth Science Vision"
In the not too distant future, knowledge of the Earth-Sun system will be achieved through a web of sensors integrated as an advanced neural network. It is analogous to the human nervous system in sensing and responding to stimuli, serving as an extension of the human senses and intelligence. Millions of sensors will reside in and on the Earth's surface, in the oceans, on the land, and in the atmosphere. Hundreds of satellites in constellations and formations in space view the Earth-Sun from a wide variety of vantagepoints; from low Earth orbit to the Earth-Sun libration points.
The system is interconnected into an advanced network, where sensor to sensor contact as well as contact to neural nodes on the ground and in space, form a Solar System Wide Web (SSWW). It provides a plug and play "anywhere/anytime" information system infrastructure by bridging and augmenting commercial, government, and international resources. It enables completely new ways of looking at the Earth-Sun system. For example, it allows the generation of retrospective and prospective MRI-like tomographic visualizations of the interior of the Earth, the oceans, the atmosphere and the magnetosphere. The system allows real-time direction and adaptation of observational assets to optimize data needed for response and forecasting. It has interaction among sensing and neural nodes to allow 'learning' to adapt the network. The sensors are programmable and re-configurable as units or as fleets to adapt to a wide range of changing observational needs. Any user can combine information from the libraries and from the sensorweb and dynamically re-configure the sensorweb or its components to form 'virtual instruments'. Scientists will no longer wait years for a flight opportunity. Information, and ultimately knowledge will be readily available, and inexpensive.
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Last Revised: July 03, 2002
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