IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - December 2017 - 92

Science and Improving Life on Our Planet."
Figure 9 shows Dr. Freilich with his overview slide "Earth System Science." He discussed NASA's Airborne Science Program,
its record for fiscal year 2017, and the NASA
Earth Observation System's achievements
and plans.
The NASA Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System mission (launched in December
2016) uses eight microsatellites to measure
wind speeds over Earth's oceans, increasing meteorologists' ability to understand
and predict hurricanes. The satellites receive
signals from global positioning system satellites already orbiting Earth and from the
reflection of the same satellites' signals from
Earth. The TROPICS system is planned as
a constellation of six -CubeSats measuring
FIGURE 12. Barbara Ryan, the Secretariat Director of the GEO.
temperature, humidity, -precipitation structure, and storm intensity, providing rapidrefresh microwave radiometer measurements over the tropics. This information can
be used to measure the thermodynamics of
the t-roposphere and precipitation structure
for storm systems at the m
- eso- and synoptic
scale over the entire storm life cycle.
The next presentation was given by Huadong Guo of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth (Figure 10). He outlined China's
Earth observation progress. By 2020, China
will have launched 40 remote-sensing satellites; China's first multimode SAR satellite
was launched in August 2016 and features an
antenna 18 m in length, has C-band fully
polarimetric capability, and provides spatial resolution ranging from 1 to 500 m,
with the largest swath ranging 650 km. Its
capability of continuous imaging is 80 min.
FIGURE 13. The primary members of the IGARSS 2017 organizing committees: (front
China's first science-driven mission for Earth
row) Billene Connon, Saibun Tjuatja, and Kun-Shan Chen; (second row) Ioannis Schiobservation, the Water Cycle Observation
zas, Boon-Hwang Lim, Lori M. Bruce, and David Kunkee; (third row) Joel T. Johnson,
Mission, with measurements of key water
Jeremy Agar, and Shannon Brown; and (top) Jonathan Bredow.
cycle components of land, sea, and the
atmosphere, will improve our understandEngineers, Japan, and a recipient of the 2008 IEEE GRSS
ing of the impacts on and interplay between the water cycle
-Education Award.
system and climate change. The payload includes a suite of
active and passive microwave sensors. The launch is expected
PLENARY PRESENTATIONS
to take place in 2020.
After the awards presentation, the plenary session continued
Dr. Guo was followed by Maurice Borgeaud, head of
with presentations by the plenary speakers. Dr. David Kunthe ESA Earth Observation Department of Science, Apkee, general cochair of IGARSS 2017, hosted this -session,
plications, and Future Technologies, with his presentation
and four renowned remote-sensing colleagues were invited
"ESA: Developed Earth Observation Missions," which was
to deliver remarks.
dedicated to -science and meteorology from 2010 to future
The first speech was given by Michael Freilich, director
2025 missions (Figure 11). The seventh Earth Explorer misof NASA's Earth Science Division, and titled "NASA's Earth
sion, Biomass, will provide biomass estimates based on global
Science Program: Innovative Approaches to Advancing
interferometric and polarimetric P-band radar observations.
92

IEEE GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING MAGAZINE

DECEMBER 2017

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - December 2017