The Center for Southeastern Tropical Remote Sensing (CSTARS) is ground station that receives imagery data from a variety of remote sensing satellites. CSTARS is owned and operated by the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, a graduate school within the University of Miami.
Overview
editCSTARS is the University of Miami’s newest facility conducting research with remotely sensed data received from earth-orbiting satellite systems. It is a new state-of-the-art real-time satellite reception and analysis facility in southern Miami-Dade that provides data for environmental monitoring of the Equatorial Atlantic region; northern South America, Central America, the Caribbean Basin, Gulf of Mexico and the Southeastern US. The facility, part of the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, is located Richmond campusin southern Miami-Dade County, Florida. Several years ago, the University of Miami purchased the US Naval Observatory Secondary National Time Standard Facility, which consists of 78 acres with several buildings and a 20m antenna used for Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI). This campus is being used for the establishment of a high capability receiving and analysis facility for X-band satellite data, to support scientific communications with the Antarctic via the 20m antenna (supported by the National Science Foundation), and management of high seas data collection (Sea Keepers).[1]