Will Rynearson
Satellite Needs Working Group (SNWG)
Helping the US provide the Earth Observation (EO) data that US government agencies need in the most efficient way.

Problem

Various US government agencies need EO data to meet their needs, but matching needs with solutions across agencies is a difficult task.

Outcome

An open-source software suite to help manage the collection of agency needs, match them to existing and future satellites, and make standardized recommendations to the US government.


NASA coordinates with other U.S. Government satellite data providers to identify, communicate, and address Earth observation needs of Federal agencies. The SNWG tooling consists of project project management software (Asana) linked to a custom report writing tool, called the Report Generation Tool (RGT). These reports are sent to the White House for budgetary review.

RGT Homepage

Reports written in RGT follow the same template to ensure the same structure across reports. Referencing other satellites or data products is simple and keeps the data up to date and standardized across reports.

RGT Editor

Users are guided through the report writing process, and are assigned to their relevant reports. Reviewers are notified once reports are ready for review, and administrators have an overview of the whole process.

RGT Workflow

Users and administrators liked its simplicity, ease of use, and time savings. More info can be found here.