Small business looks at the big picture – taken from space

Cranberry growers say the must useful view of their crop may be from
miles overhead. NASA-sponsored remote sensing lets them identify diseases
and other problems before they are visible to the naked eye in the bog.
By By Janet Kerlin

In the cranberry bog in South Carver, Mass., Chris Severance examines his plants to see whether they are producing enough blossoms or whether weeds are choking them. Time is a commodity at the Slocum-Gibbs Cranberry Co., with a full-time staff of three to manage 200 planted acres plus the surrounding land.

Severance, the farm’s environmental manager, now knows that he can observe problems from afar with sophisticated observations taken from satellites or aircraft called remote sensing. From an aircraft or satellite, NASA records light or heat energy from the plants and provides an image that shows, for example, where the bog is dry or plants are thin.

“We wouldn’t be able to get this information from looking at it with our naked eyes,” Severance said. “I can see the plant stress before I can see it with my eyes, and do something about it before it’s a detriment.”

Aerial views have been used scientifically for decades, but in recent years NASA has made the technology available to small businesses. NASA has designated nine universities as AffiliatedResearch Centers, where small businesses can ask for help. Brown is one of the ARCs.

Brown is internationally known for its capabilities in remote sensing and spectroscopy, which is the recording of reflected light and emitted heat energy at different wavelengths, much like the human eye detects color with red, green and blue filters. Spectroscopy uses hundreds of filters.

John Mustard, director of Brown’s ARC, sees his role as a problem solver for small business.

“We’re always trying to recruit companies,” Mustard said. “We want companies who are thinking about using it, but are wary or need help. We provide the technical expertise; they bring ideas.”

There is no cost to small business for the projects, which are aimed at demonstrating how remote sensing makes operations more efficient. NASA has given Brown a three-year $600,000 grant ending in 2001, said Melanie Harlow, ARC project coordinator.

NASA began introducing companies to remote sensing in 1988. To reach small businesses, the program expanded throughout the 1990s to nine universities and a budget of $2 million in fiscal year 2000. To date, 130 companies have participated, said Rodney McKellip of NASA’s Commercial Remote Sensing Program at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.

One Brown project involved a Connecticut engineering firm that needed to assess risk by counting houses along natural gas pipelines. Remote sensing proved to be a time-saving method compared to counting houses from the ground, Mustard said. Another Brown project involves a Vermont company that tracks pesticide use on farms across the country to estimate how much ends up in local watersheds. The company is starting to explore how remote sensing could give them more accurate information.

NASA provides the technology to commerce because it wants to get out of the remote sensing business. The space agency wants to see the operation privatized so that it can focus on research and development, McKellip said. NASA is funding the projects such as those at Brown to show that there is a market for remote sensing images.

A handful of companies have launched satellites, and remote sensing images are commercially available ranging from $650 to several thousand dollars. Emerging high-resolution satellite sensors are bringing the cost down. That may make remote sensing more appealing to cranberry growers like Severance.

“I got a glimpse that this could be a really valuable tool,” Severance said.