Global Space Agenda: GEOSS, Systems-of-Systems and International Cooperation

As part of the Global Space Agenda series, the Human Space Exploration Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies hosted NOAA Administratior, Conrad Lautenbacher to discuss international cooperation in remote sensing. 

While under the leadership of then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, and the current NOAA Administrator, former Navy Vice Admiral Conrad Lautenbacher, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration has spearheaded an international effort to establish the Group on Earth Observation (GEO) to coordinate international remote sensing activities related to the environment and earth observation.  Since then, the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) was created with the goal of collecting and disseminating environmental data, information, and models to policy and decision makers around the world for the benefit of all nations. 

The remote sensing data collected from the GEOSS satellites have greatly contributed to weather forecasting, water resource management, biodiversity conservation capabilities, and, in particular, data from GEOSS has helped us to better understand the nature of climate change.  The success of GEOSS has drawn suggestions that the same system of systems approach to earth observation could be further applied to other areas of space, including space exploration.