Purdue University has initiated establishment of a world class real-time remote sensing ground station array, capable of receiving synoptic data from multiple panchromatic, multispectral, hyperspectral and radar sensors, at a wide range of spatial resolutions, aboard current and soon-to-be-launched American, European, Canadian, Japanese and Russian satellites. The real-time data would be ingested automatically, geo-referenced, triaged, integrated into geographic information systems (GIS), fused with appropriate in situ data, distributed to partnering research laboratories on campus and, as value-added products, to external partners, and archived for subsequent spatial and multi-temporal investigations. Collaborating researchers have been drawn from twenty departments at Purdue University and include faculty expertise within the Schools of Agriculture, Science, Engineering, and Technology. Information Technology at Purdue (ITaP) is serving in an integrative and facilitating role.
A new addition to the Purdue Terrestrial Observatory may provide earlier warnings for natural disasters and terrorist attacks. In late May, the observatory debuted Phase II of a satellite project, a tower-mounted tracking ground station atop a 30-foot tower near the Purdue Airport. Gilbert Rochon, director of the observatory, said this new satellite comes 15 months after Phase I of the observatory's project, which is a satellite-receiving station dish located in the communications "dish farm" on the south side of campus.