We are pleased to open up to the International research community, the opportunity to request that specific targets or regions of interest be acquired on a “best effort” basis by the HawkEye Instrument which is flying on the SeaHawk CubeSat. There are a number of technical constraints that limit how many images we can obtain per orbit and store onboard each day prior to our data downlinks but we will do our best to include as many targets requested by the community as possible. To increase the chances that images of your target/region will be scheduled and collected, please review the following guidelines:
1. At this time, we request that you submit no more than 2 target requests per 3-week planning cycle
2. Recognize that cloud cover or sun glint might affect my target location.
3. Please verify that the target dates and locations you are requesting are correct.
4. Since all images are manually geolocated by us, we recommended that your requested target include some part of a coastline if possible.
5. While open ocean images will be accepted, especially in support of research cruises, understand that the navigational accuracy of those is going to be less accurate.
6. The Lat/Long you submit will be assumed to be the central point of the target image (~200km x 700km), therefore we recommend that it is within 100 km from land.
7. Some of the technical reasons why images may not be scheduled on a given orbit include:
- the power constraint that images may not be taken within 12 minutes of either an x-band data downlink at Wallops or Alaska or other scheduled images.
- conflict with the two orbits selected each week during which a new 10 day schedule is uploaded from the Glasgow mission operations center.
- the image is significantly beyond the low solar zenith angle region for that time of year.
8. As each new 10 day schedule is uploaded to the spacecraft, the images that are scheduled for acquisition will appear on a map (
https://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/seahawk/map/) and the daily activity list (
https://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/seahawk/activity/).