UMD Professor Addresses House Subcommittees on Space and Environment

Antonio Busalacchi, University of Maryland professor of atmospheric and oceanic science, testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Space and Subcommittee on Environment at a hearing on Nov. 17, 2015, titled “Exploring Commercial Opportunities to Maximize Earth Science Investments.” 

The hearing explored ways NASA can satisfy Earth science data requirements through public-private partnerships.

Earth observations provide critical knowledge about resource management, weather forecasts, climate projections, agricultural production and natural disaster response. NASA’s Earth observation program is the largest civil remote sensing effort of any nation in the world. NASA currently operates 26 Earth observation satellites, with 12 currently under development, but none are public-private partnerships. 

“Public-private partnerships offer an alternative—and potentially less costly—method to acquire Earth observations,” said Busalacchi, who is also director of UMD’s Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center and co-chair of the National Research Council’s Decadal Survey for Earth Science and Applications from Space. However, “a successful public-private partnership may be realized only in limited circumstances and only with careful attention to the particular needs of both profit-making entities and the scientific community.”

At the hearing, Busalacchi focused on his firsthand experience with a successful public-private partnership—NASA’s Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) Ocean Color data buy from Orbital Sciences Corporation (OSC).

“From a scientific perspective, SeaWiFS was a grand success in terms of the quality of the global ocean color data that was acquired and the subsequent research on marine ecosystems,” said Busalacchi, who served as the NASA official who selected OSC as the commercial entity that would provide the data to the government. “...[But] the project would not have been a success without the engineering support from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.”

Based on his experiences, Busalacchi recommended five principles to guide future public-private partnerships for Earth observations:

• Establish an appropriate insight/oversight model with the commercial partner. For example, NASA maintained insight, but not oversight, of the SeaWiFS science data buy arrangement.

• Give NASA access to algorithms, instrument characterization and data; allow NASA to reuse data; and establish an appropriate data archive. Doing so will ensure the quality of the data, allow it to be combined with other data sets, and enable future reprocessing in light of new knowledge and newer algorithms.

• Include science teams as part of a plan to maximize the utility of the data. 

• Use technical readiness as a measure of what observation methodology may be ripe for a public-private partnership. Mature technologies may be the most appropriate for public-private partnerships because novel technologies or newer data streams may require more government involvement.

• Examine the commercial demand and market for the data, as these are key to government cost savings. If the government is the sole user of the data, there is little incentive for a public-private partnership. The cost to the government for SeaWiFS was reduced by OSC’s intent to sell the real-time data to the commercial fishing industry.

Public-private partnerships may offer a cost-effective way for NASA to acquire the data required for critical Earth science applications and credible forecasts, according to Busalacchi, but this will require careful attention to all steps in the process, from the design of an instrument to plans for data continuity and stewardship.

Busalacchi spent 18 years as a civil servant at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center before joining the UMD faculty in 2000. During his final 10 years at NASA, he was a laboratory chief and member of the Senior Executive Service.

Other witnesses at the hearing included UMD Professor Emeritus of Geographical Sciences Samuel Goward, George Washington University Space Policy Institute Director Scott Pace, DigitalGlobe Founder and Chief Technical Officer Walter Scott, and PlanetLabs Co-Founder and President Robbie Schingler. 

Media Relations Contact: Abby Robinson, 301-405-5845, abbyr@umd.edu

University of Maryland
College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences
2300 Symons Hall
College Park, MD 20742
www.cmns.umd.edu
@UMDscience

About the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences

The College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences at the University of Maryland educates more than 7,000 future scientific leaders in its undergraduate and graduate programs each year. The college's 10 departments and more than a dozen interdisciplinary research centers foster scientific discovery with annual sponsored research funding exceeding $150 million.