Using Onboard Clustering to Summarize Remotely Sensed Imagery

Many current and future NASA missions are capable of collecting enormous amounts of data, of which only a small portion can be transmitted to Earth. Communications are limited due to distance, visibility constraints, and competing mission downlinks. Long missions and high resolution, multispectral imaging devices easily produce data exceeding the available bandwidth. As an example, the HiRISE camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter produces images of up to 16.4 Gbits in data volume but downlink bandwidth is limited to 6 Mbits per second (Mbps).