First Images from the MUSES Earth Observation Platform

Check out the first images taken from the Multi-User System for Earth Sensing (MUSES) facility, the new commercially operated Earth observation platform on the ISSInternational Space Station. MUSES, built and operated by Teledyne Brown Engineering and launched to the ISS on SpaceX CRS-11, provides precision pointing and can host up to four Earth-viewing instruments at once. The platform enables valuable remote sensing research with a wide variety of applications—from the assessment of water quality in Earth’s oceans and coastal areas to studies of the atmosphere, evaluation of land use, improved maritime awareness and tracking, and monitoring of agricultural production.

The first customer to use MUSES is the German Aerospace Center, DLR. In August, DLR’s Earth Sensing Imaging Spectrometer (DESIS) was installed on MUSES, and DLR and Teledyne Brown Engineering recently presented the first images taken using the instrument at the International Astronautical Congress.