New UMaine Satellite Dish to Provide Window on the Earth’s Changing Face
Contact: Nick Houtman, Dept. of Public Affairs, 207-581-3777
Note: News media representatives are welcome to cover the installation of the news satellite dish and its protective dome cover on Aubert Hall at 9 a.m. Thursday, May 12. Coverage will be conducted from the ground or from the upper floors of nearby buildings. Due to safety concerns, only construction personnel will be allowed on the roof.
ORONO, Maine — For scientists, the view of Earth from space has never been better or more critical. Details about the planet’s changing face are the raw material for monitoring the environment and anticipating the future consequences of human activity. With a $330,000 equipment grant from the National Science Foundation, the University of Maine will become New England’s window on the planet as seen through the eyes of new satellites.
The grant will pay for the purchase and installation of a new 2.4 meter (about 8 ft) diameter satellite tracking dish on the roof of Aubert Hall on the UMaine campus. According to Andrew Thomas, professor in the School of Marine Sciences and principal investigator for the project, the dish will enable UMaine to receive data from the latest generation of Earth observation satellites operated by NASA as well as those of other international space agencies.
“We have an established track record as Earth science satellite data providers here at UMaine with our existing satellite tracking dish,” says Thomas. “This new larger, dish moves us into the next generation of very recent Earth Observation satellites which deliver higher spatial and spectral resolution, and a correspondingly larger data volume. These satellites will become the standard over the next 5 to 10 years. Directly receiving these data will allow us to address environmental issues closer to our coasts, in more detail, and with new approaches. Not only that, we’ll be dealing with important problems in real-time, not waiting for delivery of data.”
The closest existing system for receiving the information is at Rutgers University in New Jersey. Institutions already lining up to take advantage of UMaine’s data receiving capabilities include the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth; Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in West Boothbay Harbor; and the Maine Department of Marine Resources.
At UMaine, more than 70 scientists in departments from forestry and marine sciences to electrical engineering and spatial information sciences and engineering have expressed interest in the new data for their research. These departments already have been designated as a NASA Center of Excellence in Remote Sensing.
By providing highly detailed views of the ocean, the new satellite information will also benefit scientists working on the new Gulf of Maine Ocean Observing System (GoMOOS), an ocean monitoring system of moored buoys, satellite data and numerical forecasting models in the Gulf of Maine. Combining the buoy-based data with the wide coverage of satellites, scientists will better understand how broad ocean changes affect the Gulf from top to bottom.