EarthDaily has received a $3 million NASA task order to evaluate how its commercial Earth-observation measurements could support Landsat-related work. The October 26 announcement describes an assessment involving NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey.
The work concerns whether observations from a commercial satellite system can be used alongside Landsat measurements with sufficient consistency. It includes tests of calibration, measurement stability, geometric accuracy, and the production of surface-reflectance and temperature information.
Testing Whether Measurements Can Be Combined
Calibration establishes how an instrument’s readings correspond to the physical quantities being measured. Stability concerns whether that relationship remains consistent over time. Geometric accuracy determines whether a measurement is assigned to the correct location on Earth.
These properties matter when observations from separate satellite systems are combined. A change between two images could reflect an actual change on the ground or a difference between the instruments. The evaluation examines whether EarthDaily measurements can be made compatible with established observation workflows.
Surface reflectance describes the proportion of incoming sunlight reflected by the ground after accounting for atmospheric effects. Surface-temperature products provide a different measurement of conditions at the land surface. The task order covers these products because compatibility requires more than matching the appearance of satellite images.
Filling Gaps Between Observations
The proposed use of commercial observations would provide additional measurements between Landsat acquisitions. The evaluation also addresses integration with workflows that combine Landsat and Sentinel-2 observations.
The contract funds that assessment. It does not establish that EarthDaily’s products have already passed the required tests or been accepted as interchangeable with Landsat measurements. The documented next step is to evaluate the commercial observations against the relevant measurement and processing requirements.
