Purdue University has initiated establishment of a world class real-time remote sensing ground station array, capable of receiving synoptic data from multiple panchromatic, multispectral, hyperspectral and radar sensors, at a wide range of spatial resolutions, aboard current and soon-to-be-launched American, European, Canadian, Japanese and Russian satellites. The real-time data would be ingested automatically, geo-referenced, triaged, integrated into geographic information systems (GIS), fused with appropriate in situ data, distributed to partnering research laboratories on campus and, as value-added products, to external partners, and archived for subsequent spatial and multi-temporal investigations. Collaborating researchers have been drawn from twenty departments at Purdue University and include faculty expertise within the Schools of Agriculture, Science, Engineering, and Technology. Information Technology at Purdue (ITaP) is serving in an integrative and facilitating role.

The PTO is comprised of the Real-Time Multi-Satellite Receiving Station, and is part of the Geoinformatics Research Center, which focuses on temporal and spatial analysis, data fusion and data mining of remotely sensed imagery in a high performance, high bandwidth environment. The PTO will also work closely with other research centers at Purdue, including Purdue's Laboratory for Applications of Remote Sensing (LARS), which celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2006, the Center for Advanced Applications of GIS (CAAGIS), the Center for the Environment (C4E), the Purdue Climate Change Research Center (PCCRC), the Purdue Interdisciplinary Center for Ecological Sustainability (PICES), the Site Specific Management Center (SSMC), the Geomatics Research Laboratory in the Dept. of Civil Engineering, the Synthetic Environment for Analysis and Simulation (SEAS) Laboratory, the SoftLab Research Group, the Computer Research Institute (CRI), the Center for Wireless Research, the Center for Sensing Technology, and the Envision Center for Visualization and Data Perceptualization. The PTO will build upon these relationships and develop cooperative agreements with NASA, DOD, NIMA, NIST, NSF, NOAA, DOT, DOE, USGS, EPA, USDA, CDC and the Office of Homeland Security, as well as with selected international entities, such as the European Association of Remote Sensing Laboratories (EARSeL), NASDA, ESA, CNES, CSA, CONAE and Tubitak.

Alliances will also be sought with the relatively small number of university-based real-time remote sensing facilities, including minority-serving institutions, so as to facilitate research collaboration and to assure critical redundancy. The PTO will also initiate and publish the peer-reviewed quarterly, Journal of Terrestrial Observation.