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NASA NTRS2010

Digital Astronaut Photography: A Discovery Dataset for Archaeology

Astronaut photography acquired from the International Space Station (ISS) using commercial off-the-shelf cameras offers a freely-accessible source for high to very high resolution (4-20 m/pixel) visible-wavelength digital data of Earth. Since ISS Expedition 1 in 2000, over 373,000 images of the Earth-Moon system (including land surface, ocean, atmospheric, and lunar images) have been added to the Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth online database (http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov ). Handheld astronaut photographs vary in look angle, time of acquisition, solar illumination, and spatial resolution. These attributes of digital astronaut photography result from a unique combination of ISS orbital dynamics, mission operations, camera systems, and the individual skills of the astronaut. The variable nature of astronaut photography makes the dataset uniquely useful for archaeological applications in comparison with more traditional nadir-viewing multispectral datasets acquired from unmanned orbital platforms. For example, surface features such as trenches, walls, ruins, urban patterns, and vegetation clearing and regrowth patterns may be accentuated by low sun angles and oblique viewing conditions (Fig. 1). High spatial resolution digital astronaut photographs can also be used with sophisticated land cover classification and spatial analysis approaches like Object Based Image Analysis, increasing the potential for use in archaeological characterization of landscapes and specific sites.

Stefanov, William L.↗
NASA NTRS2017

Image Detective 2.0: Engaging Citizen Scientists with NASA Astronaut Photography

Image Detective 2.0 engages citizen scientists with NASA astronaut photography of the Earth obtained by crew members on the International Space Station (ISS). Engaged citizen scientists are helping to build a more comprehensive and searchable database by geolocating this imagery and contributing to new imagery collections. Image Detective 2.0 is the newest addition to the suite of citizen scientist projects available through CosmoQuest, an effort led by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP) and supported through a NASA Science Mission Directorate Cooperative Agreement Notice award. CosmoQuest hosts a number of citizen science projects enabling individuals from around the world to engage in authentic NASA science. Image Detective 2.0, an effort that focuses on imagery acquired by astronauts on the International Space Station, builds on work initiated in 2012 by scientists and education specialists at the NASA Johnson Space Center. Through the many lessons learned, Image Detective 2.0 enhances the original project by offering new and improved options for participation. Existing users, as well as new Image Detective participants joining through the CosmoQuest platform, gain first-hand experience working with astronaut photography and become more engaged with this valuable data being obtained from the International Space Station. Citizens around the world are captivated by astronauts living and working in space. As crew members have a unique vantage point from which to view our Earth, the Crew Earth Observations (CEO) online database, referred to as the Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth (https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/), provides a means for crew members to share their unique views of our home planet from the ISS with the scientific community and the public. Astronaut photography supports multiple uses including scientific investigations, visualizations, education, and outreach. These astronaut images record how the planet is changing over time, from human-made changes like urban growth and agriculture, to natural features and landforms such as tropical cyclones, aurora, coastlines, volcanoes and more. This imagery provides researchers on Earth with data to understand the planet from the perspective of the ISS, and is a useful complement to other remotely sensed datasets collected from robotic satellite platforms.

Higgins, Melissa↗
NASA NTRS2018

Public Engagement of Earth Science and Art Using Astronaut Photography

For over fifty years of crewed spaceflight missions, NASA astronauts have taken remarkable photographs of the Earth that offer various perspectives for viewing dynamic Earth processes. The International Space Station (ISS) today provides a unique platform to view and capture imagery of Earth at a variety of viewing angles, seasons, and times of day. Astronaut photos comprise a variable true-color (RGB - Red Green Blue) dataset taken with multiple handheld digital (and historically, film) cameras and lens types that differ from nadir-looking satellite-based remote sensing instruments with fixed temporal and spatial resolutions. The Crew Earth Observations (CEO) Facility within the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit at NASA’s Johnson Space Center supports the acquisition, analysis, and curation of astronaut photography of Earth’s surface and atmosphere. CEO’s website, the Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth (eol.jsc.nasa.gov), provides free public access to view, search, and download over three million images taken by astronauts from Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions to current ISS missions. Handheld images taken by astronauts from the ISS are used for scientific research and public engagement in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) fields, particularly earth science. While segments of the public are actively interested in STEM fields, there may be groups who are underexposed to and disinterested in earth science or are unaware of astronaut photography from the ISS. A broader public audience can be introduced to earth science, STEM fields, and ISS research through artistic or abstract photos of the Earth. Wide angle pictures taken of Earth have identifiable landforms and bodies of water, however zoomed in, very high resolution photos without obvious geographic reference can attract new viewing audiences on a purely aesthetic basis. The CEO Facility actively curates a collection of exceptional astronaut photos of Earth as art used to reach a wider population through increased digital products and outreach events. This continuously-updated collection feeds development of freely accessible and high-quality downloadable materials including scientific articles, videos, computer wallpapers, and social media content. These materials are presented with science-based information that augments the artistic qualities of the imagery, and facilitate connection between art-engaged or non-STEM audiences to the ISS research platform and the need for future innovative STEM research.

Meado, Andrea L.↗
NASA NTRS2017

Land Cover/Land Use Classification and Change Detection Analysis with Astronaut Photography and Geographic Object-Based Image Analysis

For over fifty years, NASA astronauts have taken exceptional photographs of the Earth from the unique vantage point of low Earth orbit (as well as from lunar orbit and surface of the Moon). The Crew Earth Observations (CEO) Facility is the NASA ISS payload supporting astronaut photography of the Earth surface and atmosphere. From aurora to mountain ranges, deltas, and cities, there are over two million images of the Earth's surface dating back to the Mercury missions in the early 1960s. The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth website (eol.jsc.nasa.gov) provides a publically accessible platform to query and download these images at a variety of spatial resolutions and perform scientific research at no cost to the end user. As a demonstration to the science, application, and education user communities we examine astronaut photography of the Washington D.C. metropolitan area for three time steps between 1998 and 2016 using Geographic Object-Based Image Analysis (GEOBIA) to classify and quantify land cover/land use and provide a template for future change detection studies with astronaut photography.

Hollier, Andi B.↗
NASA NTRS2018

Earth Science Engagement Through Art and Astronaut Photography

For over five decades of manned spaceflight missions, NASA astronauts have taken extraordinary photographs of Earth's surface and dynamic processes. Humans on board the International Space Station (ISS) have a unique platform to perform Earth observations at various viewing angles, seasons, and times of day. Astronaut photos taken from the ISS comprise a true‐color (RGB) dataset taken with multiple handheld digital cameras and lens types (prior to 2004, film cameras were in use). Earth observations through astronaut photography are an important and unique remote sensing method when monitoring natural disasters, urban growth, and environmental changes. While astronaut imagery can be used for earth science research, there is also an artistic aspect to the photography that fascinates a wide global population. A broader public audience can be introduced to earth science through high resolution, Earth art photos taken from the perspective of an astronaut. The Crew Earth Observations (CEO) Facility within the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit at NASA's Johnson Space Center supports the acquisition, analysis, and curation of astronaut photography of Earth's surface and atmosphere. CEO's website, the Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth (eol.jsc.nasa.gov), provides free public access to view, search, and download over three million images taken by astronauts throughout all of NASA's crewed spaceflight history, with an emphasis on current ISS imagery. The CEO Facility actively curates a digital collection of exceptional Earth art astronaut photos used for public engagement. Our new Downloadable Earth Art page focuses on broad earth science topics including: mountains, water, clouds, agriculture, as well as an "abstract" category. This continuously‐updated collection is comprised of freely accessible and high‐quality downloadable materials, such as single‐ and dual‐screen digital wallpapers. All Earth Art materials are presented with science‐based information that complements the artistic qualities of the imagery, and facilitate connections between general audiences and earth science from the International Space Station.

Meado, Andrea L.↗
NASA NTRS2024

Explore Astronaut Photography with the New GIS Data Portal

The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth (GAPE, eol.jsc.nasa.gov) contains the complete collection of all Earth observing photography captured as part of the Crew Earth Observations (CEO) project on the International Space Station. Astronaut photography is a valuable remote sensing data set that can provide images ranging from high resolution (~4m/pixel) nadir views to oblique views through the atmosphere. Nighttime imagery collected as part of CEO constitutes the highest resolution publicly available nighttime visible light data. This data support dozens of research projects looking at urbanization, land use/change, disaster response, and many others. Our team has deployed a new interactive map tool that greatly expands the functionality of the GAPE data set, enabling researchers to easily search our collection of fully georeferenced daytime and nighttime imagery around the world. Users can download the georeferenced tiles directly through the portal or through an API interface. The data hosted on this new tool is growing every day as more images are processed through our auto-georeferencing process.

Kenton R Fisher↗
NASA NTRS2019

Quantitative Comparison of Proprietary and Open-Source Georeferencing Tools for Use with Astronaut Photography

The Crew Earth Observations (CEO) Facility within the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit at NASA’s Johnson Space Center supports the acquisition, analysis, and curation of astronaut photography of Earth’s surface and atmosphere. Astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) respond to requests from CEO to acquire imagery of scientific and education targets, to include high profile targets in response to activations from the International Charter for Space & Major Disasters (also known as the International Disaster Charter, or IDC) and NASA’s Disasters Program. CEO facilitates the acquisition of astronaut photography in response to IDC events and delivers georeferenced data products to the United States Geological Survey (USGS) for distribution to the disaster community. Using GeoRef, an internal web-based tool developed in collaboration with NASA’s Ames Research Center, CEO generates data packages of georeferenced imagery, uncertainty images for assessing control and tie point accuracy, and metadata documenting raw and processed data. Operational experience with the Georef software identified vulnerabilities to internal code and server errors that can significantly increase time of data production. As such, CEO developed a backup procedure in case the GeoRef software experiences front-end or back-end errors. A system using OSGEO’s open-source QGIS software combined with a semi-automated pipeline using the object-oriented Python language and the Geospatial Abstract Library for generating metadata is quantitatively compared to GeoRef’s data package for quality and productivity. Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) provides a standard measurement of data quality as it relates to ground error. Assessing RMSE measurements generated from georeferenced astronaut photographs acquired with different obliquity and focal length offers a comprehensive accuracy assessment of the software’s transformation algorithms. This assessment will indicate the software's ability to produce data products with the least ground-error or highest data quality regarding ground accuracy. In addition, a comparison of the software’s efficiency in generating a data package that includes georeferenced images, metadata, and uncertainty images for measuring tie/ground point error was performed. Initial results, based on the comparison of three nadir-facing astronaut photographs acquired with a 95mm focal length, reveal the QGIS-based system's average RMSE is 2.36 (pixels) suggesting its georectification system produces data products that meet and perhaps improve upon Georef solution's average RMSE of 32.99 (pixels). However, the QGIS system was unable to reproduce two unique Georef data products, uncertainty images for measuring tie and control point errors and a translated unwrapped image. In addition, the Georef software is designed to accept handheld camera pose information from a hardware component (Geosens) scheduled for deployment on the ISS in late 2018; this information is intended to provide increased accuracy and auto-registration capability for astronaut photographs. Future work is expected to determine the QGIS-based georectification system’s potential as an open-source alternative (and operational backup) to Georef for georeferencing the full range of resolutions and viewing angles unique to handheld digital camera imagery in support of ISS disaster response activities.

Jagge, Amy M.↗
NASA NTRS2009

An Overview of Astronaut Photography

This viewgraph presentation gives a general overview of astronaut photography. The contents include: 1) The Data; and 2) Astronaut Training and Operations.

Stefanov, William L.↗
NASA NTRS2001

Astronaut Photography of Coral Reefs

Astronaut photographs of tropical coastal areas may contain information on submerged features, including coral reefs, up to depths of about 15 m in clear waters. Previous research efforts have shown that astronaut photographs can aid in estimating coral reef locations and extent on national, regional and global scales, and allow characterization of major geomorphological rim and lagoon features (Andrefouet et al. 2000, in preparation). They can be combined with traditional satellite data to help distinguish between clouds and lagoon features such as pinnacles (Andrefouet and Robinson, in review). Furthermore, astronaut photographs may provide reef scientists and managers with information on the location and extent of river plumes and sediment run off, or facilitate identification of land cover types, including mangroves (Webb et al., in press). Photographs included in the section were selected based on several criteria. The primary consideration of the editors was that the photographs represent a worldwide distribution of coral reefs, have extremely low visual interference by cloud cover, and display a spatial scale reasonable for examining reef-related features. Once photographs were selected, they were digitized from 2nd generation copies. The color and contrast were hand corrected to an approximation of natural color (required to account for spectral differences between photographs due to the color sensitivities of films used, and differences in sun angle and exposure of the photographs). None of the photographs shown here have been georeferenced to correct them to a map projection and scale. Any distortions in features due to slightly oblique look angles when the photographs were taken through spacecraft windows remain. When feasible, near vertical photographs have been rotated so that north is toward the top. An approximate scale bar and north arrow have added using distinctive features on each photograph with reference to a 1:1,000,000 scale navigation chart. Astronaut photographs provide a unique source of moderate resolution reef remote sensing data because of their global coverage and (immediate) availability in the public domain. The database of photographs can be searched an browsed online and high-resolution digital copies of photographs in this atlas can be accessed via the Website of Earth Science and Image Analysis at NASA's Johnson Space Center:

Robinson, Julie A.↗
NASA NTRS1988

Astronaut photography of the earth - Low cost images for resource exploration

Applications for photographs taken with handheld cameras by astronauts on the Space Shuttle are examined. The amount, types, and quality of photographs taken between 1981 and 1986 are described. Examples of these photographs and a portion of a map displaying the coverage of these photographs are presented. The possible use of handheld Space Shuttle photography in conjunction with Landsat mosaics for geologic exploration is discussed.

Wood, Charles A.↗
NASA NTRS2017

Demonstrating Change with Astronaut Photography Using Object Based Image Analysis

Every day, hundreds of images of Earth flood the Crew Earth Observations database as astronauts use hand held digital cameras to capture spectacular frames from the International Space Station. The variety of resolutions and perspectives provide a template for assessing land cover change over decades. We will focus on urban growth in the second fastest growing city in the nation, Houston, TX, using Object-Based Image Analysis. This research will contribute to the land change science community, integrated resource planning, and monitoring of the rapid rate of urban sprawl.

Hollier, Andi↗
NASA NTRS2017

Astronaut Photography of the Earth: A Long-Term Dataset for Earth Systems Research, Applications, and Education

The NASA Earth observations dataset obtained by humans in orbit using handheld film and digital cameras is freely accessible to the global community through the online searchable database at https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov, and offers a useful compliment to traditional ground-commanded sensor data. The dataset includes imagery from the NASA Mercury (1961) through present-day International Space Station (ISS) programs, and currently totals over 2.6 million individual frames. Geographic coverage of the dataset includes land and oceans areas between approximately 52 degrees North and South latitudes, but is spatially and temporally discontinuous. The photographic dataset includes some significant impediments for immediate research, applied, and educational use: commercial RGB films and camera systems with overlapping bandpasses; use of different focal length lenses, unconstrained look angles, and variable spacecraft altitudes; and no native geolocation information. Such factors led to this dataset being underutilized by the community but recent advances in automated and semi-automated image geolocation, image feature classification, and web-based services are adding new value to the astronaut-acquired imagery. A coupled ground software and on-orbit hardware system for the ISS is in development for planned deployment in mid-2017; this system will capture camera pose information for each astronaut photograph to allow automated, full georegistration of the data. The ground system component of the system is currently in use to fully georeference imagery collected in response to International Disaster Charter activations, and the auto-registration procedures are being applied to the extensive historical database of imagery to add value for research and educational purposes. In parallel, machine learning techniques are being applied to automate feature identification and classification throughout the dataset, in order to build descriptive metadata that will improve search capabilities. It is expected that these value additions will increase interest and use of the dataset by the global community.

Stefanov, William L.↗