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Spinoff story
Algorithms to Detect Clouds Forecast Global Crop Production
A real-world story of NASA technology finding a life beyond the mission.
About this technology
Overview
An algorithm originally created to detect clouds is now being used for everything from increasing food security in the developing world to guiding futures trading on Wall Street. Landsat satellites typically looked for clouds with a thermal imager, but when plans for Landsat 8 didn’t include one, Stennis Space Center put out a call for software that could identify cloud cover. State College, Pennsylvania-based Geospatial Data Analysis Corporation won the SBIR contract and developed an algorithm that it later expanded with additional SBIR funding to detect other features, including crops.