International Space Station Agricultural Camera

02/14/2013

Image of Devils Lake, ND from ISS Agricultural Camera (ISSAC™) taken on 19th January 2012 @ ~10.42 am local. Image shows a false-color composite and created by merging 15 frames taken in sequence at a frame rate of 1 per second.

02/14/2013

Coastal region of French Guiana (Iracoubo) from ISS Agricultural Camera (ISSAC™) taken on 6th Dec 2011 @ ~11:14 GMT. Image shows a false-color composite and created by merging 13 frames taken in sequence at a frame rate of 1 per second.

01/03/2013

Today (Jan 3rd, 2013), ISSAC payload was successfully removed from the WORF inside Destiny module. ISSAC mission complete!

01/02/2013

On Thursday, January 2nd, at 10:30 in the morning, NASA astronauts are scheduled to remove UND’s ISSAC (International Space Station Agricultural Camera) from its observation window onboard the ISS. [The timeline has been advanced on short notice due to onboard operational scheduling issues]. A subsequent Earth imaging payload, “ISERV”, is scheduled to be installed in ISSAC’s place in the Window Observation Research Facility (WORF) on January 15th.

Together with NASA we have written a detailed procedure which the crew will perform on their own. However, the ISSAC ground support team will be on console to answer any questions they may have; accordingly we have requested a live video feed of the procedure. Any students, faculty, or staff interested in observing the activity is welcome to stop by Clifford Hall, Room 270S tomorrow morning. Total scheduled time is about 1 ½ hours (~10:30 to noon-ish).

There are no specific plans for future ISSAC utilization at this time. However, we are in discussions with NASA to potentially combine components of ISSAC with those of ISERV, which would require a few minor new adaptive hardware components to be built and flown, but which would result in a multi-spectral camera with high spatial resolution. Should funding be identified and allocated, such a hybrid system could be available within a year or so of project start. We should know further on this potential opportunity in the next month or two.

12/12/2012

The ISS historically has not been perceived as an Earth observation platform. With sophisticated sensor systems, the perception is changing.

12/11/2012

A UND designed camera aboard the International Space Station is going out with a bang. NASA is taking pictures of natural disasters worldwide to close out its mission next month.

09/26/2012

If you're in the Grand Forks area today or on UND's campus stop on by the second floor of Clifford Hall, by room 270. Today starting now we will be having an open house to cap off the end of our operations, stop on by for some refreshments, tour of our operating center and the chance to see our operations up close! At 2:15 pm, pending the astronauts' schedule we will be having a live space to ground conference with them which you will be able to listen in on. At approx. 4:00 pm we will be signing off with the NASA ground controllers at Marshall Space Flight Center who have helped make our operations possible over the last year and a half. Hope to see you all here!

09/20/2012

In response to International Disaster Charter request, ISSAC captured pictures of forest fires in North Algeria.

09/20/2012

UND's remote sensing payload ISSAC™ onboard the space station, took pictures of ongoing wildfire "Wesley" near New Meadows, Idaho on Sept 14th around 1.00PM local time (Montana). This wildfire was caused by a lightning strike and burned over 10,666 acres. As of Sept 19th, Wesley wildfire is 8% contained.

09/20/2012

09/17/2012

Our image was featured on InciWeb recently. Nice to see that our images can even provide real-time help from above!

Information on Sawtooth Fire From Space