Multi-Asset New Observing Systems Flight Demonstration

NASA’s New Observation System (NOS) program seeks to ”involve the coordination and integration of various instruments located at different vantage points from NASA and non-NASA sources, including in orbit, airborne and even in-situ sensors to create a more dynamic and complete picture of a natural physical process.” This can be seen as an evolution of prior programs in “Sensorwebs” which used data from a number of sources (space, air, in-situ, marine) to direct further sensing to most effectively track dynamic scientific phenomena such as wildfires, flooding, volcanic activity, algal blooms, and more. Concurrently, the European Space Agency (ESA) 𝚽-Lab is initiating a “virtual constellations” initiative with similar goals. JPL is leading an effort to demonstrate these concepts leveraging the proliferation of commercial platforms in Low Earth Orbit. We describe the capabilities that we wish to demonstrate, initial progress in demonstrations, and future demonstration plans.