The purpose of NASA's Earth Science Enterprise (ESE) is to understand the total Earth system and the effects of natural and human-induced changes on the global environment. The Office of Earth Science is pioneering the new interdisciplinary field of research called Earth system science, born of the recognition that the Earth's land surface, oceans, atmosphere, ice sheets and biota are both dynamic and highly interactive. NASA's Earth Science Enterprise has evolved from what was previously called the Mission to Planet Earth.

The Office of Earth Science comprises an integrated slate of spacecraft and in situ measurement capabilities; data and information management systems to acquire, process, archive and distribute global data sets; and research and analysis projects to convert data into new knowledge of the Earth system. The office is NASA's contribution to the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), an interagency effort to understand the processes and patterns of global change. NASA is the largest partner in the USGCRP, providing the bulk of the program's space-based observational efforts. NASA has extensive collaboration with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on short-term climate event prediction.

The Earth Observing System (EOS), the centerpiece of the office of Earth Science, is a program of multiple spacecraft and interdisciplinary science investigations to provide a data set of key parameters needed to understand global climate change. The first EOS satellite launches began in 1999. Landsat 7 was launched in April 1999. Landsat 7 carries a single instrument, the Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus, which makes high spatial resolution measurements of land surface and surrounding coastal regions.

The Terra satellite (formerly EOS AM-1) provides key measurements that will significantly contribute to our understanding of the total Earth system. The Terra instrument complement obtains information about the physical and radiative properties of clouds, air-land and air-sea exchanges of energy, carbon, and water, measurements of trace gases, and volcanology, vegetation, and ocean phytoplankton. Several additional spacecraft and instruments are scheduled to fly as part of the EOS program in the next few years.

The Enterprise is currently defining concepts for science and applications missions in the post-2002 time frame. NASA has obtained a first round of ideas from the science and applications communities for these mission concepts and is using them to build a multi-mission profile for Earth observation satellite missions in the 2003-2010 time frame.

Data from Earth science missions, both current and future, will be captured, processed into useful information, and broadly distributed by the EOS Data and Information System (EOSDIS). EOSDIS will ensure that data from these diverse missions remain available in active archives for use by current and future scientists. Since these data are expected to find uses beyond the Earth science research community, EOSDIS is accessible by environmental decision-makers, resource managers, commercial firms, social scientists and the general academic community, educators, state and local government.

Complementing the EOS missions, under the Earth Probes program, is a series of small, rapid development Earth System Science Pathfinder (ESSP) missions to study emerging science questions and to use innovative measurement techniques in support of EOS. The first four ESSP missions are the Vegetation Canopy Lidar, Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, the Pathfinder Instruments for Cloud and Aerosol Spaceborne Observations (PICASSO-CENA), and CloudSat.

The New Millennium Program, started in 1996, is designed to identify, develop, and flight-validate key instrument and spacecraft technologies that can enable new or more cost-effective approaches to conducting science missions in the 21st century. The first mission, Earth Observing-1, is designed to demonstrate detector technology that will be used to provide advanced Landsat-style imagery with an Advanced Land Imager instrument.

In addition to the EOSDIS that will produce data products for a wide range of users, NASA is engaging in a variety of activities to extend the utility of Earth science data to a broader range of users such as Regional Earth Science Applications Centers. Efforts are under way to fuse science data, socio-economic data and other data sets that can be "geo-referenced" in readily understandable data visualizations.

Following the recommendation of the National Research Council, NASA is exploring the creation of a federation of Earth science information partners in academia, industry and government to broaden the participation in the creation and distribution of EOSDIS information products. As a federation pilot project, 24 organizations were selected in 1997 to become Earth Science Information Partners (ESIPs) to develop innovative science and applications products.

The intellectual capital behind Earth science missions, and the key to generating new knowledge from them, is vested in an active program of research and analysis. Over 1,500 scientific research tasks from nearly every U.S. state are funded by the Earth science research and analysis program. Scientists from seventeen other nations, funded by their own countries and collaborating with U.S. researchers, are also part of the Earth Science program. These researchers develop Earth system models from Earth science data, conduct laboratory and field experiments, run aircraft campaigns, and develop new instruments.

The Research Division within the Office of Earth Science at NASA Headquarters provides scientific oversight of a wide range of Earth science projects. Lead by Dr. Jack Kaye, the 15 discipline-specific programs include atmospheric chemistry modeling and analysis, atmospheric dynamics, ecology, global atmospheric modeling and analysis, global change data analysis, international programs, oceans, physical oceanography, polar processes, radiation science, solid Earth, stratospheric chemistry, terrestrial ecology, tropospheric chemistry, and water cycle processes.

Each program is managed by a Program Scientist who represents their discipline across the many activities in the Office of Earth Science, including spacecraft missions, instrument development, data centers, and the EOS interdisciplinary science teams.

Source: NASA's EOS Global Change Media Directory 1999, Earth Observing System Project Science Office, Goddard Space Flight Center, June 1999.

Earth Observing System
EOS Project Scientists