All language subtitles for B T W S04E02 1080p WEB h264-BAE_track3_[eng]

(upbeat music)

- [Cray] Humans have
always had the impulse

to explore towards
the night sky,

towards the cosmos,

towards the unknown.

(boinging noise)

- [Announcer] Thrusting
outward into space,

we gain new perspective
on ourselves.

- But it's not just about
going as far as we can.

Space exploration also
provides a unique vantage

to look back at
Earth, all of Earth,

in near real time.

- Exploring space,
we learn quite a bit.

We learn about our home planet.

We learn about our solar system.

We learn about our universe.

- Sensors on satellites
have revolutionized the way

that we understand the Earth.

The data is used for
measuring snow cover,

infrastructure in
cities, mapping.

There's a lot to explore.

- The technology has
increased in capability,

has decreased in size and cost,

and that enables a lot
of things to happen.

- I'm Cray Novick.

- And I'm Myrna James.

It's time to go
"Behind the Wings."

A big focus for NASA and
players throughout the industry

has become our own planet Earth.

So today, we're gonna
focus on the question,

what can we learn about
Earth from data from space?

To start, we'll talk
with Dr. Kate Calvin

to learn what NASA
Earth is all about.

- One of NASA's most
important missions

is our home planet, Earth.

And we have a lot of
research going on about Earth

from observations to
models to technology.

We measure the Earth on and
above the Earth's surface,

we can see the state of the
Earth and how it's changing.

We build computer models
that help us understand Earth

that can both help us
understand the processes

that are impacting Earth.

They also give us a
window into the future

so we can see how Earth
might change going forward.

So you think about
some of the pictures

that astronauts have taken
from the Apollo missions

or from the International
Space Station,

and you see Earth,

you see this beautiful blue ball

with clouds swirling around.

And our satellites help us
take those sorts of images

nearly continuously, and
looking at all of the Earth.

Each satellite is designed to
measure something different.

So some are looking
at visible light,

some measure changes in gravity,

and we have more than two
dozen of these satellites

and instruments in orbit,

and together, they let us
see things like vegetation,

carbon dioxide, clouds
and precipitation,

changes in the mass of
ice sheets, and much more.

- The satellite era
in the grand scheme

of earth sciences is
relatively recent,

started just after the launch
of the Sputnik satellite

in the late '50s.

Into the early '60s, it
was very experimental.

There was a lot of funding
for developing rockets

and thinking about how
to put people up there.

In terms of the instruments
that could view our Earth,

that was a little bit secondary.

Well, the first cameras
that went up were analog.

Film canisters were
dropped from space,

down and being
collected by people.

Into the '70s, then,

digital technology
started to come online.

And that was really exciting
because it allowed us

to start to do some
really fancy things,

like send out microwave signals
with timestamps on them,

which we use to power our
global positioning system

or GPS network.

Right. So we've come a long
ways, as earth scientists,

in the use of satellite data.

Right now, it's indispensable.

It's difficult to imagine how
science would be undertaken

without satellite
instrument measurements.

- We've been collecting
observations about the Earth

from satellites for decades.

So we can see, not just the
state of the Earth today,

but how it's changed over time.

One of the satellite programs

that we have in partnership
with USGS is called Landsat,

and Landsat lets us see
land use and land covers.

We can see where
there are forests,

where there are urban areas,
where there are crops or snow,

and we're coming up on our
50th anniversary of Landsat.

So we have nearly 50
years of observations

of land use and land cover.

So we can see how that
has changed over time.

And when you look
at Landsat records,

what you'll see is
expansions of urban area.

You'll see declines in
forest in parts of the world.

And we have other satellite
missions like that,

that give us
different information.

And we work with a lot of
the commercial partners.

So we actually have a
commercial small sat

data acquisition program,

where we buy data from some
of the commercial small sats

and make it available
to NASA researchers

so that we can do
more climate research,

more earth science research,

using other satellites,

not just our own missions.

- Satellites are
constantly orbiting earth.

And you probably
use them every day,

whether you realize it or not.

We're about to use GPS, or
the global positioning system,

to head to Maxar's headquarters.

We're gonna meet with Dan Nord

to learn more about
satellites and their sensors.

What can we learn
about the Earth

by looking back
at it from space?

- We think about that every day,

and the answer is a lot.

And so, we have an ability
to look at a holistic scale

at the world and monitor change.

And since we've been
doing it for 25 years,

we actually have
change over time.

And with that, you can
model a lot of behavior.

And then if you look globally,

it's where's the next
big city growing up.

We can answer that.

The life cycle of a
satellite is fascinating.

At first, you need to figure out

what you want to do
with your satellite.

And so, we make high resolution
Earth-imaging satellites.

We also make satellites that
help with communication,

whether it's Wi-Fi or other,
and then, multi-spectrals.

And then, you have
to build a satellite,

and this is the hardest thing.

This is more like
building a Ferrari.

This is custom-built, hand-built
large scale technology

that cannot fail.

You can't go fix a
satellite once it's up.

There's some companies starting
to think about how to do it.

But the things moving
thousands of miles an hour,

far away,

so everything has to be checked,

double checked and
quadruple checked.

- So yeah. Let's take a
look at the satellite.

It's got a couple
different parts here.

I mean the, on the sides,

I know you said satellites
don't have wings,

but what's happening
on the sides?

- Those are solar panels that
brings in the sun's energy

to power the vehicle.

But this doesn't have wind
resistance or anything, yeah.

Solar panels can't fly.

- They're not gonna
provide the lift.

- And then, if you look up
here, this is the camera.

So this is actually inverted,
aiming down at Earth.

- So we have our power source.
This would be our sensor.

And then, I imagine
somewhere on here

is a communication device
to actually transmit

that back to Earth.

- There you go.

Yeah. And so, it's
flying, taking pictures,

and in real time,

sending the data down
to our ground stations,

and you've seen what a generic
ground station looks like.

It's a dish looking
straight back up.

Space is hard.

And what it's reflecting
is just how complex

building machinery
that needs to withstand

extreme temperatures
on the hot side,

extreme temperatures on
the cold side, radiation,

there's so much you
have to protect against,

and it has to work every time.

You then pick
who's gonna launch.

- [Woman] There we
heard the final call.

LD is go for launch.

(rocket engine rumbling)

- [Woman 2] And
we have lift off.

- [Dan] The last one
we did for Sirius XM

was on a SpaceX rocket.

And then once it's up,

they put it in the
orbit that we ask for,

either low or mid or high.

And then, we take about a month

to get it into place and
test every single element.

And once that's done,

we start pulling imagery down.

These are big imaging
satellites that can capture

all of Denver in one pass,

but then can zoom in and
look at an individual vehicle

with enough resolution to know
what's the make and model,

which is incredible.

And then, when it's time to
decommission a satellite,

you put it in a drag orbit

and it burns up
in the atmosphere.

- Over 4 billion people

are using Maxar
technology every month.

People are probably
interacting with satellites,

whether they know it-

- That's right.
- Or not on a daily basis.

- The way mapping
works, in the old days,

was you had to
physically go to a place,

and even Google, when they
did their first mapping,

they drove cars all
around the world.

Whereas a satellite can
do it relatively quickly.

- I do wanna focus
in a bit because

there are so many examples.

Tell me about the work you do

with the Jane Goodall Institute,

with chimpanzees and
mapping and conservation.

- From space, we
can count animals.

It's absolutely fascinating.

We've done it with
narwhals in Canada.

With the amount of
imagery we have over time,

we can monitor their habitats.

You always hear the stories,

"Oh, this population is dying."

We can count that and check it,

and turn it into real
ground truth. Real fact.

So we're looking
for these use cases,

because this is new
technology at a global scale.

What can we use it for?

We're getting really
close, up close imagery,

where each pixel's
about 30 centimeters.

We understand what's
happening on our planet.

The observation
and the crunching

of these massive chunks of data,

so we have 125
petabytes of imagery

that we store and process
and we add to every day.

I think it's three and a half
million square kilometers

of imagery every
day of the Earth.

And we pull it in
and we process it.

We can run algorithms that say,

"Hey, actually, this
corner of this place,

it's going to be a drought
in the next five years."

That's information
that's invaluable for

either these companies
or these nonprofits

that want to help.

- Here we have a
map that shows SAIL,

the Surface Atmosphere
Integrated Field Lab,

focused really in the
Colorado Rocky Mountains.

And it's a big watershed. It's
got the Continental Divide.

And that means a lot of
people depend on it for water.

It's a big area.

They're using these satellites,

but the satellites alone aren't
enough to get verified data.

And to really see
the big picture,

that's something
called ground truth.

- Yeah, we definitely
need ground control points

so that you can
verify on the ground,

as you said, ground truthing
the data from space,

to show that they're in the
right place on the ground.

That's really essential

for any kind of
scientific data like this.

- We've made it to sunny
Crested Butte, Colorado.

We're about to head to
the top of the mountain

and check out one of
SAIL's observation towers.

They're using more
than 50 sensors,

taking measurements from
bedrock to satellites in space.

Let's go see how it works.

- Water is life.

And it's something
that we rely on,

and a lot of our
ecosystems rely on as well.

We're here in the headwaters
of the Colorado River,

the major river system of
the Western United States.

It serves about
40 million people,

and the water for that
river comes from snow

that we're seeing
here in the mountains.

We're getting a lot less of it.

We're here to make some
very detailed measurements

of how that change is occurring.

So we are midway up the mountain

on Crested Butte
Mountain Resort.

We are at the mountain site

of the Surface Atmosphere
Integrated Field Laboratory,

or SAIL campaign.

Which we can learn a whole lot
about the Earth from space.

I have had the
privilege of working

with a lot of satellite
instrument data sets,

and it's really remarkable
because they're so powerful.

One instrument smaller
than this trailer

is able to measure
the entire planet.

At the same time,

the ways that we measure
snow is from satellite.

That's actually a real
cutting edge problem,

something that NASA is
definitely still working on.

We're providing a great
set of observations

to help inform a number of
the researchers on SAIL,

who are thinking
about how to design

what that satellite looks like.

And the reason it's
so hard is because,

just looking at where snow is

doesn't tell you
the whole story.

- It's such a complex problem.

And it's really about
seeing the big picture

from every different angle,

from space to underground,
to 50 different sensors.

And we're at one
of the study sites.

We've got a couple
of them right here.

Let's go take a closer look
at the precipitation radar.

- Inside that radome,
that ping pong ball,

is an antenna that spins around

and sends out microwave energy

at wavelengths about
three centimeters.

It's very sensitive to
how much rain is falling

or how much snow is falling.

This instrument measures
the input of water

into watersheds that
serve the Colorado River.

My colleague, Ken Williams,
will talk a lot more

about water accounting and
why that's such a big deal.

- How are some of
these instruments
working in conjunction

with satellite
imagery or balloons

going to the atmosphere,

and some of the
other data points

that you guys are collecting?

- Absolutely.

What we're gonna
be taking a look at

is called the Aerosol
Observing System,

and what it's really
trying to do is

to measure the particulates
in the atmosphere.

You can see that deposition
or that distribution of dust

from things like
balloon-based measurements,

from fixed-wing aircraft,
and from satellites as well.

It's what we call
variations in albedo.

And so, how white
the snowpack is

versus how dark the snowpack is,

is really important in
terms of how this melts out

in the spring and how that
melt water finds its way

to our local streams and rivers.

- That is so cool.
Dust is so small,

but you can still
see it from space.

- That's absolutely
true. It may be small,

but it can have a
really outsized impact

on how snowpack and
mountain snowpack behaves.

And so, this is the first
place in the United States

that allows us to link
atmospheric processes

where, when, and
how precipitation is
falling and occurring,

and how that precipitation
finds its way

into local streams, rivers,

and into deep
groundwater as well.

The Aerosol Observing System.

Let's go take a look at it.

- Thank you. See, that's
why you're the scientist.

All right. Let's look.

- With the rise
of climate change,

increased stress on plants,

we're actually really
interested to understand

how atmospheric
processes play a role

in delivering a
critical element,

like nitrogen in
these watersheds.

Well, what that's
really allows us to do

is now to link
satellite-based imagery

from the Landsat
satellite products

to really look at the
greenness of our forests, okay.

And greenness is really a
proxy for forest health.

So we can go back over a decade
of Landsat satellite data,

and look at these forests
are either increasing

in their greenness
or decreasing.

- I've done field
work measuring trees,

and I spent a week measuring
trees with a colleague,

and we measured the
width of every tree

to give us a sense
of how old it was

and how much carbon
it was storing.

But we covered a very,
very small amount of trees

in our week there,

where a satellite can
cover the whole surface.

In that same amount of
time, all of the Earth.

And so, they kind of
work together though.

We use the ground-based
measurements

to calibrate the satellites.

We use the satellites to
fill in the spaces and times

that we didn't have
ground-based measurements.

- Wow. I can't even
count how many sensors

we've looked at already,

but we've got miles
to go before we sleep.

And if the weather's good,

we might even be able to launch
a balloon this afternoon.

Let's pop the skis
back on and do it.

- Let's get 'em on.

- Here we go.

Gothic, Colorado is
a former mining town,

outside of Crested Butte,

and is now used for
scientific research.

And in the winter,

it's only accessible by
cross-country skiing.

A few miles later, we arrived
at the Gothic Research Center.

So this is really cool.

We're able to see, from space,

pretty much where
we're standing, right?

I mean, you can almost
see us right there.

- Yeah. Right.

- Not quite, but-

- Well, if we put our hands
out, maybe, you know? (laughs)

- The satellites are giving
context to all the sensors

and work being
done on the ground.

And just like there's
sensors here on Earth,

there's also sensors
up on those satellites.

- Absolutely.

So the, what we're seeing here

is we're seeing,
in these imagery,

where the extent of
where the snow is,

but that doesn't
actually tell us

how much water is in there.

And so, a lot of the
measurements here are getting

at those details of how
much water is in the snow

that we're seeing
here in the imagery.

We are looking at the imagery
that was collected today

of an instrument called Modis,

which stands for the

Moderate Resolution
Imaging Spectroradiometer.

So kind of a mouthful.

This is on the NASA
Worldview website

that shows all kinds of
imagery. It's super powerful.

We know it's from today because

we can see this black spot here,

is where the
satellite data hasn't

actually collected
information yet.

- What's at stake with
these measurements?

- It's, what's at stake
is the development

of predictive capability
for how much water

we're going to
have in the future.

We would really like to know
if there's gonna be enough

water for all of us
this year, next year,

five years from now,
10 years from now,

without really going
to these places

and seeing what's actually
happening on the ground.

We're not able to know if any
of our predictions have value.

- We're getting ready to
do the balloon launch.

What exactly do you do to get
ready and launch the balloon?

- First, we prep a sonde,

and this is one of
your sondes here.

We use this computer software
here to condition this,

and we basically calibrate it.

So it has a relative humidity.

We compare this sensor in
here to a sensor inside here.

Same thing with temperature.

- And you make
sure it's accurate.

- Exactly.

- Okay.
- Yeah.

- And the balloon is kind-of
just the vessel to bring it,

how high, exactly,
do these balloons go?

- Oh, say 90,000 feet.

It sends via radio
link every second.

- Okay.
- So we get a download

of height, temperature,

relative humidity, and location,

and it gives you some wind.

- So we've got our helium
balloon and a bunch of sensors.

Going way, way up.

- Yep.

(Cray chuckling)

- All right, here we go!

Launching.

The weather balloon will
rise into the mesosphere

about 17 miles high,

whereas the commonly
agreed definition of space

is around 62 miles high.

Together, measurements
from the weather balloon,

the satellites, and all
of the other sensors

will help the SAIL
team learn more

about mountain watersheds.

Water is life and
snow is life, too,

for the 60 to 90%
of people worldwide

that depend on mountain
watersheds for their water.

We've made our way down
to the Slate River,

one of the tributaries
to the Colorado,

and even within the US,

that's 40 million people
that rely on this water.

Now it turns out,

it's really hard to predict
how much precipitation

there's gonna be
in the mountains,

and how much of that's
actually gonna make

its way into the river.

And that's why SAIL
is collecting an
unprecedented amount

of data from satellites
orbiting right now,

all the way to underground,

to try to understand and
actually predict the future,

how much water will
be here in five years.

And that's a really
important problem to solve.

(light poignant music)

- This chart shows the
increase in the number

of operating satellites
that exist right now.

In 2006, there were
less than a thousand.

So fast forward to 2020,
there were less than 3,500,

and really, this number
is going up exponentially

with all the different
satellites that
are being launched,

tiny little nano
satellites and small sats,

especially the ones for
global internet services

that are coming up.

- We're continually
thinking about

what we're gonna launch next,
what we wanna measure next,

which science questions
we need to answer.

But we're also working,
at the same time,

to design what's called the
Earth System Observatory.

And this is a set of satellites
that are gonna work together

to provide a 3D holistic
picture of the Earth,

from the surface up
through the atmosphere.

The first satellite in that

will be a satellite
called NISAR.

NISAR's gonna let
us measure changes

in the Earth's surface
at a fine level,

so that we'll be
able to see things

like ice sheet collapse
and landslides.

Satellites are really critical
'cause they provide us

continuous observations,

and they provide a large extent.

So many of our satellites
are global in scope,

so we see the whole Earth,

not just the area
right in front of us.

And that's really
important 'cause

climate and earth science,

it's a global research area.

And so, the more know
about the entire Earth,

the better we can
understand Earth,

and the better we
can think about

how it might evolve
in the future.

And the satellites that
we're designing and planning

to launch in the future

will provide even
more information,

and give us a better
sense of where we are

and where we might go.

So our data, people use
it around the world,

from scientists to
decision makers.

And a lot of what we do,

when we're thinking
about future missions,

is think about what
questions do we have.

What do we wanna
know about the Earth?

And work from there
to design a mission

that can help answer that.

So we know more than
we ever have before,

and every year we learn more.

We keep developing new
technologies and sensors

that'll give us the
ability to understand

even more about the Earth,

from heights of trees
to how much snow,

to sea level rise, changes in
ice sheets, carbon dioxide.

So we know so much
about the Earth,

and the more we
learn about the Earth

and the more we understand
the processes that affect it,

the better we can
plan for the future.

- Now we're looking at a
map of satellites in orbit.

There's over 19,000, and
if you scroll around,

you can kind of see,

they kind of look like
they're everywhere, right?

And then you zoom in
lower Earth orbit,

there's even more,

so they're at
different altitudes.

They're at different orbits.

They're all spinning at once.

- This is the live map that
shows where they really are,

and you can see the
concentration in
low Earth orbit.

- And what's interesting is,
if you flip the type to junk,

it turns out over
13,000 of those 19,000

are not operational.
They're junk.

They're old. They're
not being used anymore.

The not junk is only 5,000.

So there's way more
junk satellites up there

than operating satellites.

And if you play
that out, over time,

there's just gonna be
more junk and more junk.

And it raises these questions.

How do you get rid
of them safely?

How do you avoid collisions?

You know, when two
objects collide in orbit,

it creates thousands
of small pieces,

and all of those small
pieces can then impact again,

collide again with
other objects in space.

So the worst case scenario
with space debris is

that you kind-of create a belt

of space debris
all around Earth,

and that makes it pretty
hard to leave orbit.

So it kind of shows how
serious this all can be.

Thankfully, there are
some companies, today,

starting to work on that.

- My name is Eric Ingram.

I'm Co-Founder and CEO of SCOUT,

and we are a company developing

space domain awareness

and vision capabilities
for satellites

to be able to
navigate autonomously.

So essentially, by themselves.

So the way we currently
track things in space,

be it satellites or debris,

is primarily with
Earth ground-based
radars and telescopes

that track the traffic
going overhead in space,

to determine which dot
is which satellite.

As the number of satellites
up there increases,

that becomes more difficult.

So what we want to do is be
able to better track all of that

to again, make space a
safer place to operate in.

The cost of getting to space

and the cost of all the
technology is decreasing.

And the capability of that
technology is increasing,

just like your cell phone
can do a lot more now today

than it could 10 years ago.

And the same thing is
true with satellites.

You see Earth observation,
communication satellites,

Internet-providing satellites,

all going up in the near future,

and that's changing the
way space is operated in.

And so, there's a lot
more satellites up there

that are using space

to get all of these amazing
services down to Earth.

And companies like ours
are working to make sure

the space traffic is
navigating a safe way

in that everybody's
able to use space

to provide these
services to Earth.

- Not all satellites have
fuel on board to move.

And so, who has
the right of way?

What happened on the roads,

and then the seas,
and then the sky,

we're gonna see
replicate in space.

So, as things get crowded,

you have to pay attention
to directing traffic.

You need to pay attention
to cleaning streets.

So all of these are gonna
have analogs in space.

It'll be a smaller
scale at first,

but everything is
moving really fast.

The commercial and
government collaborations

have created these
companies like SpaceX,

which are bringing
business practices.

I mean, now we can put
things in space at volume

to start really
exploring the world

and making second and
third homes for humans.

It's a really exciting time.

- Space startups are
filling in for services

that weren't even
possible a few years ago,

and are more necessary
today than ever before.

- More satellites
and sensors in space

provides us with more data

than we've ever had before,

and more insights
about the Earth.

It also means that we
need more infrastructure

to support this
increase in activity.

- And next episode on
"Behind the Wings,"

we'll look more into how
this growing space economy

is changing what's
possible in space.

(upbeat music)