Here’s an example of how business interest will trump clumsy political budget cuts in earth sensing.

Part of Frascati’s Controlled Origin Denomination – a wine’s legally demarcated home region – was surveyed in ultra-sharp detail using an airborne radar sensor both before then after last October’s harvest. This two-stage ESA campaign was called BACCHUS-DOC, and was intended to complement a number of radar and optical satellite acquisitions by ERS-2, SPOT, Landsat, IKONOS and QuickBird…Following processing of raw data, the results are now under study by a team from ESRIN, ESA’s European Centre for Earth Observation located within the area of study, and the nearby University of Tor Vergata. In particular they are investigating to what extent the BACCHUS-DOC airborne and satellite radar imagery is sensitive to vineyard surfaces and the change in biomass following the grape harvest.

http://www.mindfully.org/Technology/2006/BACCHUS-DOC-Frascati31jan06.htm