Airbus Selected as Provider for NASA’s Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition Program (CSDA)
NASA to access a full range of Imagery and Data products
Airbus Defence and Space, as a leading provider of premium Earth observation imagery and data in the market, has been selected by NASA together with six other providers for the Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition Program (CSDA). This program will allow the agency the flexibility to acquire Earth observation data and related services from various commercial providers for Earth science research and application activities.
The CSDA award is a follow-on from a blanket purchase agreement in 2021 that provided the NASA research community with access to a comprehensive catalogue of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Earth observation products from the TerraSAR-X, TanDEM-X and PAZ X-band radar satellites along with elevation data products derived from these sensors. This allowed the NASA community to access and evaluate the quality of SAR data from Airbus. “The synthetic aperture radar data Airbus provides is top-notch. The resolution and accuracy of the data allows researchers to gain precise insight into any point on Earth, independent of weather and daylight conditions. In addition, the radar catalogue allows researchers to have access to more than 550,000 individual historical radar images ranging from 25cm to 40m resolution provided by Airbus” said (insert title and name).
Now, the NASA research community will have access to a wide range of optical, radar and elevation products from Airbus. Data access will include archive and tasking options ranging from 30cm, 50cm and 1.5m resolution sensors. Users can search through the Airbus archive of optical imagery that provides over 16 billion km2 of multi-resolution data, as well as task the Airbus satellites to acquire new imagery over any location on Earth. Airbus’ most advanced optical satellites, Pléiades Neo, provide native optical 30cm resolution imagery with 3.5m geolocation accuracy. Airbus’ other sensors complement the 30cm data with high resolution and larger swath capabilities. HD15 imagery products will also be included, as a way for researchers to get a higher resolution product, derived from 30cm data.
The research community will also have access to a suite of elevation products, including DSMs and DTMs derived from the optical and radar sensors. The elevation products include WorldDEM and WorldDEM Neo, a homogenous pole-to-pole digital elevation model with 12m and 5m grid spacing, respectively. Optical elevation datasets are also available ranging as low as 0.5m grid spacing. The elevation datasets provided by Airbus can be used for a wide variety of applications and tailored to individual project needs.
“Airbus is thrilled to expand our relationship with NASA and provide their research community with deep and extensive access to a wide range of satellite imagery and derived products from our extensive archive to tasking services” said Nicolas Stussi, Managing Director of Airbus Intelligence, North America. “We are looking forward to seeing how researchers can exploit our data to extract information to support projects around the world.”