Can NASA Earth Science be outsourced to private industry?
Private industry and government science and applications often have very different data needs.
In a lengthy defense of his “Athena” project, NASA nominee Jared Isaacman describes using concepts of “science-as-a-service” to outsource Earth observation to commercial satellite providers:
I know the “science-as-a-service” concept got people fired up, but that was specifically called out in the plan for Earth observation, from companies that already have constellations like Planet, BlackSky, etc. Why build bespoke satellites at greater cost and delay when you could pay for the data as needed from existing providers and repurpose the funds for more planetary science missions (as an example)?
Isaacman seems to imply that NASA could save money by simply buying data from the commercial market. Is he aware that NASA already does this? The NASA Commercial Satellite Data Acquisition (CSDA) Program, has, for several years, been assessing the utility of commercial Earth observation for scientific purposes. The evaluation criteria covers four points:
- Accessibility of data
- Completeness and accuracy of metadata
- User support services provided by the commercial entity
- Usefulness of submitted data for science and applications
The CSDA Program’s findings show that some commercially available data are limited in their utility for scientific purposes.
There are several reasons that successful Earth observation requires NASA, NOAA, ESA, and others to create their own. An excellent perspective on this was recently posted on Terrawatch Space.
I recommend reading the entire piece, but two salient points for me were:
NASA and agencies like ESA don't operate Earth science missions because commercial providers can't build satellites. They operate them because some observations are too important to depend on business models, shareholder returns, or market conditions. … The real question is not whether NASA can save money by buying data from commercial EO providers. It is whether we are willing to risk the continuity, openness, and reliability of the observations that underpin our understanding of the Earth. The answer should be obvious.
