Advanced Marine Information Delivery

Abstract

SEASAT-1 is now an established fact. It is providing continuous sensing of the world's oceans and related meteorological phenomena from its satellite platform in space. What is the next step? This paper considers the information delivery challenges of the follow-on programs to SEASAT as they progress through the next decade. These include coping with the vast quantities of data to be transferred, fulfilling the temporal requirements on data delivery, and the trade-offs and developments needed to accomplish the various levels of processing required to convert sensor output into useful information. A need for critical development is clearly identifiable in the areas of low cost ground terminals capable of image extraction and image correlation; dynamic data assimilation to accomodate forecasters; low resolution onboard correlators; and low cost user advisory (display) terminals. The system planners for the Ocean Satellite advanced programs are utilizing an end-to-end data systems approach in meeting these challenges. The economic and scientific impact of delivering decision making information to the marine community in real time and in useful form is recognized and is potentially achievable.