Thailand before and after the Tsunami (Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer).

Baby stars creating chaos in the Orion Nebula (Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes).

Simultaneous retrieval of cloud heights and wind vector data using multi-angle imagery (Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer).

Mission science objectives drive science operations. Engineers work with scientists to fully understand the capabilities and limitations of the instruments, operational environment, mission operations plan and science objectives so that they can design a system, tools, retrievals and algorithms to meet those objectives. Science operations include the generation of products for scientific research, analysis and discovery, as well as for strategic long-term and instrument operations planning.

Standard science data products are produced at various levels ranging from Level 0 to Level 4. Level 0 data products are raw instrument data at full instrument resolution. At higher levels, raw instrument data is converted into more usable parameters and formats. Level 1 products are processed and radiometrically and geometrically calibrated to remove instrument and spacecraft effects; Level 2 products are geophysical measurements derived from the instrument data; Level 3 are global and local maps of various elements and global and local mosaics of images; Level 4 products are model outputs or results from analysis of lower level data.

Scientific visualizations and animations are critical tools used by the science team in instrument operations and science planning. The mission and science teams use these visual tools in describing mission objectives, mission status, and scientific discoveries. Visualization and animation products vary greatly by mission, generic categories include: simulated launch, arrival and major events; 2-D and 3-D pans at full resolution; zoom-in views from global to area of interest; fly-over of strategic and scientifically interesting areas; and virtual views of an instruments daily activities.

Strategic long-term mission planning enables missions to validate, verify, visualize and analyze science operations. Strategic planning requires a broad range of tools and collaboration among experts. Because of the migration from centralized to distributed operations, strategic planning frameworks and environments have been designed to enable access to broad, shared processing and analysis capabilities, and to enable effective, high-speed, high-resolution data and voice communications. Planners can connect their observations and models to this environment and share their resulting products, analysis and operations plans with the remotely distributed team.