Douglas Isbell

Headquarters, Washington, DC November 17, 1997

(Phone: 202/358-1753)

Lanee Cobb
Stennis Space Center, Stennis, MS
(Phone: 228/688-3341)

RELEASE: 97-268

FIRST PHASE OF EARTH SCIENCE

DATA PURCHASE AWARDS SELECTED

Eleven offers have been selected for contract negotiations in

the first phase of NASA's planned purchase of Earth science data
and related information products that meet both commercial needs
and the agency's scientific requirements.

"This is truly a new way of doing business for NASA," said

William Townsend, Acting Associate Administrator for the NASA
Office of Mission to Planet Earth, Washington, DC. "But it's just
one step in a longer, multifaceted process of NASA working more
aggressively with industry and other non-governmental
organizations to advance scientific understanding of our Earth as
a total environmental system."

The U.S. Congress approved the plan to initiate the data

purchase activity in the fiscal 1997 NASA budget. It will be
managed by the NASA Commercial Remote Sensing Program at Stennis
Space Center, Stennis, MS, the Agency's lead center for fostering
commercial applications of NASA Earth science data and related
technology.

A Request For Offers was made by NASA in May 1997 to provide

unique Earth science data and related information products for
purchase. The purchased information will be used by research
teams within NASA's Earth science enterprise, which manages the
agency's portion of an internationally coordinated research effort
to study the Earth's land, oceans, atmosphere, ice and life as a
global environmental system.

By purchasing data upon delivery from private industry

instead of developing, building and launching new satellites, NASA
may be able to conduct and expand its scientific investigations at
a much lower cost, while encouraging the growth of this economic
sector, Townsend said.

The first phase of this effort will cover a maximum six-month

period to be spent analyzing and validating sample data sets.
Those proposals selected to continue to Phase II will receive a
letter describing the price, quantity of data and its required
characteristics, based on terms and conditions commonly found in
the commercial marketplace.

Awards were based on several criteria, including "best

science value" to the government, and the degree to which the
offered data met the business and performance characteristics of
the solicitation, including scientific utility, data rights and
the proposed price.

The successful offerors are:

Earth Satellite Corporation, Rockville, MD, will provide a medium-

resolution common global geographic reference database using
Landsat Multispectral and Thematic Mapper images.

Jackson and Tull/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, Seabrook, MD,

will provide high-volume, on-site ocean data using demonstration
ocean buoys with interactive telemetry links.

User Systems/Space Imaging-EOSAT, Gambrills, MD, will process and

provide distribution capability for 18 terabytes of Shuttle
Imaging Radar data in support of land surface classification
research.

Earthwatch, Longmont, CO, will provide high-resolution imagery

from the Earlybird commercial remote-sensing satellite, over the
Upper San Padre Basin, CA, and Stennis Space Center. Phase II
imagery acquisitions will be determined by the Earth science
community.

The University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, will provide a complete

dataset of upper tropospheric water vapor and cloudiness data
using the Visible/Infrared Spin Scan Radiometer Atmospheric
Sounder aboard U.S. GOES weather satellites.

Space Imaging-EOSAT, Thornton, CO, will provide three-foot (one-

meter) resolution panchromatic and 13-foot (four-meter) resolution
multispectral imagery. In Phase I it will be simulated; Phase II
data will be from the IKONOS satellite constellation that will be
launched by the company later this year.

Final Analysis, Lanham, MD, will provide measurements of

atmospheric aerosols and trace gases from the deployment of a
planned 12-satellite constellation.

Positive Systems, Whitefish, MT, will provide three-foot (one-

meter) resolution multispectral imagery over the Sevilleta
National Wildlife Refuge, NM.

TRW Civil & International Systems Division, Redondo Beach, CA,

will provide airborne hyperspectral imagery (384 channels) based
over the highly characterized region around Jasper Ridge, CA.

Astrovision, Inc., Stennis Space Center, MS, will provide 24-hour

imagery from geostationary orbit to provide real-time
documentation of public and environmental hazards such as
tornadoes, hurricanes, lightning, fires, volcanoes, meteors and
floods.

Resource 21, Englewood, CO, will provide data for extracting land
resources management information from multispectral imagery that
could provide continuity with Landsat-7 data.

Further information about these products and awards is

available on the Internet at URL:

http://procurement.nasa.gov/EPS/SSC/award.html

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