Center Of Excellence


In 1997, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) established numerous Centers of Excellence for Applications in Remote Sensing, principally to support regional and global integrated assessments of the environment. Selected as one of these centers, the John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences will acquire and operate a satellite ground receiving station to downlink data from Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) spacecraft sensors. These AVHRR sensors, which are aboard several polar orbiting spacecraft operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), are used to collect multi-spectral images of the Earth's land masses, oceans, and atmosphere. Applications of the data are wide-ranging, from meteorology and weather forecasting to support for agriculture and for environmental monitoring.


Data from the AVHRR ground station will be processed and analyzed by several elements of the John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences. These include the Upper Midwest Aerospace Consortium (UMAC), the Regional Weather Information Center, and the Space Studies Department. Through UMAC, the data will also be shared with its partner universities and with the general public.