The Center for Southeastern Tropical Advanced Remote Sensing (CSTARS) is a

ground station A ground station, Earth station, or Earth terminal is a terrestrial radio station designed for extraplanetary telecommunication with spacecraft (constituting part of the ground segment of the spacecraft system), or reception of radio waves fr ...

owned by the

University of Miami The University of Miami (UM, UMiami, Miami, U of M, and The U) is a private university, private research university in Coral Gables, Florida, United States. , the university enrolled 19,852 students in two colleges and ten schools across over ...

Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science The Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science is the University of Miami's academic and research institution for the study of oceanography, atmospheric sciences, atmospheric, and earth sciences. The Rosenstiel School is locat ...

that receives

imagery Imagery is visual symbolism, or figurative language that evokes a mental image or other kinds of sense impressions, especially in a literary work, but also in other activities such as. Imagery in literature can also be instrumental in conveying ...

data from a variety of

remote sensing Remote sensing is the acquisition of information about an physical object, object or phenomenon without making physical contact with the object, in contrast to in situ or on-site observation. The term is applied especially to acquiring inform ...

satellites A satellite or an artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. They have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation ( GPS), broadcasting, scientif ...

. CSTARS is located on the

's Richmond campus on

Virginia Key Virginia Key is an barrier island in Miami, Florida. It is located in Biscayne Bay south of Brickell and north of Key Biscayne and is accessible from the mainland via the Rickenbacker Causeway. The island is mainly occupied by the Virginia Ke ...

Miami Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...

, Florida.

Overview

The center's mission is to collect

satellite imagery Satellite images (also Earth observation imagery, spaceborne photography, or simply satellite photo) are images of Earth collected by imaging satellites operated by governments and businesses around the world. Satellite imaging companies sell im ...

for environmental monitoring of

hurricanes A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system with a low-pressure area, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depending on its locat ...

volcanoes A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often fo ...

landslides Landslides, also known as landslips, rockslips or rockslides, are several forms of mass wasting that may include a wide range of ground movements, such as rockfalls, mudflows, shallow or deep-seated slope failures and debris flows. Landslide ...

, and other natural or man made

disasters A disaster is an event that causes serious harm to people, buildings, economies, or the environment, and the affected community cannot handle it alone. ''Natural disasters'' like avalanches, floods, earthquakes, and wildfires are caused by natur ...

. In 2000, the University of Miami purchased the

United States Naval Observatory The United States Naval Observatory (USNO) is a scientific and military facility that produces geopositioning, navigation and timekeeping data for the United States Navy and the United States Department of Defense. Established in 1830 as the ...

Secondary National Time Standard Facility. The purchase included of land with several buildings and a 20-meter antenna once used for

Very Long Baseline Interferometry Very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) is a type of astronomical interferometry used in radio astronomy. In VLBI a signal from an astronomical radio source, such as a quasar, is collected at multiple radio telescopes on Earth or in space. T ...

. This large antenna is currently used to support scientific communications with the

Antarctic The Antarctic (, ; commonly ) is the polar regions of Earth, polar region of Earth that surrounds the South Pole, lying within the Antarctic Circle. It is antipodes, diametrically opposite of the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antar ...

(on behalf of the

National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...

). Two 11 meter

X-band The X band is the designation for a band of frequency, frequencies in the microwave radio region of the electromagnetic spectrum. In some cases, such as in communication engineering, the frequency range of the X band is set at approximately 7.0� ...

antennas were added to create a high bandwidth data reception capability for the

downlink In a telecommunications network, a link is a communication channel that connects two or more devices for the purpose of data transmission. The link may be a dedicated physical link or a virtual circuit that uses one or more physical links or shar ...

of satellite image data. Scientists and staff perform research and analysis activities on-site as well. The station mask covers a very large area stretching from

Hudson Bay Hudson Bay, sometimes called Hudson's Bay (usually historically), is a large body of Saline water, saltwater in northeastern Canada with a surface area of . It is located north of Ontario, west of Quebec, northeast of Manitoba, and southeast o ...

in northeastern Canada down to northern

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

in the south. The mask includes

Central America Central America is a subregion of North America. Its political boundaries are defined as bordering Mexico to the north, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest. Central America is usually ...

, the eastern

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

, the Caribbean Basin, the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico () is an oceanic basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, mostly surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north, and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States; on the southw ...

and much of the Eastern US including Eastern Seaboard. CSTARS provides a

VoIP Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also known as IP telephony, is a set of technologies used primarily for voice communication sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. VoIP enables voice calls to be transmitted as ...

communication system for the

Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station The Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station is a science and technology in the United States, United States scientific research station at the South Pole of the Earth. It is the List of extreme points of the United States, southernmost point under ...

. Admiral John Stavridis, former commanding officer of

United States Southern Command The United States Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM), located in Doral, Florida, Doral in Greater Miami, Greater Miami, Florida, is one of the eleven unified combatant commands in the United States Department of Defense. It is responsible for providi ...

, wrote the following about CSTARS in his book ''Partnership for the Americas''

Projects

Hurricane Katrina Damage Assessment and Disaster Relief

CSTARS played a vital role in the damage assessment and relief efforts of

New Orleans New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...

and the

Gulf Coast The Gulf Coast of the United States, also known as the Gulf South or the South Coast, is the coastline along the Southern United States where they meet the Gulf of Mexico. The coastal states that have a shoreline on the Gulf of Mexico are Tex ...

in the aftermath of

Hurricane Katrina Hurricane Katrina was a powerful, devastating and historic tropical cyclone that caused 1,392 fatalities and damages estimated at $125 billion in late August 2005, particularly in the city of New Orleans and its surrounding area. ...

. The first remote sensing images illustrating the extent of the

flooding A flood is an overflow of water ( or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are of significant concern in agriculture, civi ...

in New Orleans were collected at CSTARS.

Project with Department of Homeland Security (DHS)

The

United States Department of Homeland Security The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. United States federal executive departments, federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the Interior minister, interior, Home Secretary ...

has included CSTARS as one of its "Centers of Excellence" so that CSTARS will work with the

Stevens Institute of Technology Stevens Institute of Technology is a Private university, private research university in Hoboken, New Jersey. Founded in 1870, it is one of the oldest technological universities in the United States and was the first college in America solely de ...

to research

port A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Hamburg, Manch ...

security and maritime monitoring issues.

Project with Office of Naval Research (ONR)

The

Office of Naval Research The Office of Naval Research (ONR) is an organization within the United States Department of the Navy responsible for the science and technology programs of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. Established by Congress in 1946, its mission is to plan ...

awarded CSTARS a grant to support satellite based research studies on internal

waves United States Naval Reserve (Women's Reserve), better known as the WAVES (for Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service), was the women's branch of the United States Naval Reserve during World War II. It was established on July 21, 1942, ...

and

typhoons A typhoon is a tropical cyclone that develops between 180° and 100°E in the Northern Hemisphere and which produces sustained hurricane-force winds of at least . This region is referred to as the Northwestern Pacific Basin, accounting for a ...

in the western

Palau

CSTARS participated in a

Pew Charitable Trusts The Pew Charitable Trusts is an independent non-profit, non-governmental organization (NGO), founded in 1948. Pew's stated mission is to serve the public interest by "improving public policy, informing the public, and invigorating civic life". ...

study to examine how to protect one of the largest Marine Protected (MPA) areas in the world through the utilization of commercially available earth imaging satellites.''The Republic of Palau Exclusive Economic Zone MONITORING, CONTROL, AND SURVEILLANCE
/ref>

References

External links

{{authority control Earth sciences organizations Geographic data and information organizations in the United States Geographical technology Meteorological organizations Remote sensing research institutes University of Miami