How New Satellites Are Measuring a Changing Planet

Aug 7, 2019
Earth’s orbit is an increasingly busy place. While there are already about 2,000 satellites circling our planet today, current projections say we could see somewhere around 1,100 new ones launch every year by 2025.
..the biggest approaching breakthrough is applying software-defined networking to satellites…
This interplanetary network would be much more flexible than the current system, allowing humans and robots to solve unexpected challenges, even across huge distances.
Another booming area involves soil moisture data that can be used to study “desertification, floods and drought studies, forest fire risk evaluation, vegetation senescence El Niño/La Niña events and more.” Meanwhile, ocean salinity is used for “circulation, polar caps melting, fisheries, etc. FSSCat data will be used for soil moisture and ice mapping (sea ice extent and thickness).”

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