The Satellite Needs Working Group¶
The Satellite Needs Working Group (SNWG) is an interagency, coordinated approach to identify and communicate Federal satellite Earth observation needs and develop solutions to help federal agencies use Earth-observing satellite data products in their research and decision-making.
As a core component of the interagency U.S. Group on Earth Observations (USGEO), the SNWG conducts a biennial survey of federal agencies’ satellite data needs to identify and devise new solutions that maximize the value of American Earth observing satellites. Since its inception in 2016, SNWG has received over 500 survey responses.
NASA’s SNWG Implementation TEam (NSITE) facilitates the review of these surveys by subject matter experts at NASA, NOAA, and USGS to identify feasible, high-potential solutions that meet specific needs identified by civil agencies. NSITE then engages relevant stakeholders to collaboratively develop these ideas into finished solutions customized to those agency users.
Solutions have connected NASA Earth data to needs across a wide range of areas, such as agriculture, oceans, forestry, air quality, and disasters. These collaborations also fuel NASA Earth science innovations and build stronger working relationships between NASA, fellow federal agencies, and other public and private sector users.
Helping NISAR Meet Users’ Needs¶
Critical enhancements to the NISAR mission and several applications of its data have been made possible through the work of the SNWG, whose mission is to maximize the value of satellite data for federal decision makers by engaging fellow civilian agencies of the U.S. government.
The SNWG works to ensure that missions like NISAR remain closely connected to the evolving needs of the American government, able to adapt and respond to new applications and challenges.
Since the first SNWG survey cycle, federal agencies and stakeholders in many different sectors have expressed a growing appetite for SAR data. Several SNWG solutions were designed to maximize the value of NISAR long before it was launched in 2025.
Supplemental Downlink Station¶
In 2016, SNWG’s first survey found widespread demand among land-monitoring agencies for increasing NISAR’s then-planned spatial resolution and variety of polarization channels. Though NISAR’s hardware could accommodate these increased capabilities, the proposed changes drastically increased the volume of data that would need to be regularly offloaded beyond what NASA infrastructure could handle at the time.
One of SNWG’s inaugural solutions supported the installation of a supplemental downlink station at Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia to meet this increased demand. Today, this downlink station is fully operational, allowing NISAR to provide decision-makers with higher-resolution data for all of North America.
Soil Moisture¶
The following survey cycle in 2018 continued to indicate growing demand for SAR applications in a variety of sectors. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the U.S. Forest Service, and other agencies expressed an urgent need for high-resolution soil moisture data for purposes like field-scale irrigation plans or tracking wildfire risk.
The SNWG NISAR Soil Moisture product responds to these needs by zooming into soil moisture changes at 200 m resolution, and agencies are already planning to incorporate NISAR Soil Moisture data into their workflows. For example, the USDA is working with NASA to eventually include NISAR data in its Crop-CASMA platform for weekly crop status reports.
OPERA¶
Other NISAR-based SNWG solutions from subsequent surveys include a series of tools for monitoring geophysical and surface water processes. The Observational Products for End-Users from Remote Sensing Analysis (OPERA) team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory oversees several SNWG solutions, including SAR-based products for dynamic surface water extent (DSWx) and surface displacement (DISP), with a vertical land motion (VLM) product also in development.
Current versions of the DSWx and DISP tools derived from Sentinel-1 data are already used by the USGS for applications like flood response mapping, landslide hazard assessment, monitoring groundwater abstraction, and more. NISAR-based versions of each of these tools are currently under development to help improve the sensitivity and frequency of interferometric data.