The Joint Agency Commercial Imagery Evaluation (JACIE) Workshop celebrated its 25th anniversary this year, taking place from April 7-11, 2025 at U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Headquarters in Reston, Virginia, USA. https://www.usgs.gov/calval/jacie
JACIE was formed in 2001 to leverage resources from several U.S. Federal agencies for the characterization of commercial remote sensing data and to share those results across the remote sensing community. Partner agencies include the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
While JACIE is a continuous activity, the annual workshop is its highlight public exhibition. In 2025, the workshop had 400 total participants with an equal split of 200 in-person and 200 virtual attendees representing 25 nations and 107 individual organization.ย JACIE is technical workshop focusing on Calibration and Validation (Cal/Val) activities of commercial and governmental satellite data providers.
Group Picture of JACIE 2025 Workshop
The workshop included over 90 presentations over 5 days. Specific topics covered included Agency Update Briefings; New and Future Systems AI and Automation; Standards, Formats, and Specs, Thermal (as a dedicated session for the first time!); Resources for Data Quality; Active Sensors (SAR and Lidar); Environmental Commercial Data and Atmospherics (as a dedicated session for the first time!); Analysis Ready Data (ARD) and Interoperability; Hyperspectral; Topography, Geolocation, Digital Elevation Models (DEMs); Techniques and Tools; and Characterization Results.
There were also multiple dedicated side meetings: Commercial Regulatory Affairs from NOAA; Data Format Standardization from NGA; and Data Quality Frameworks, Guidelines, and Best Practices from NASA and USGS. For the second year JACIE hosted vendor exhibits, with 13 organizations/companies, along with and a networking event, with provided food and drink.
Key outcomes form the workshop included a reaffirmed need for calibration and validation guidance, support, and resources with the rapid expansion of commercial satellite missions, recognition that JACIE is a trusted technical forum for open and transparent technical collaboration between government agencies and commercial providers, a call for swifter incorporation of artificial intelligence and machine learning in calibration and validation activities, a continued push for easing interoperability between missions through tools, standards, and expectations, and the importance of continued collaboration between JACIE and the Very High-resolution Radar & Optical Data Assessment (VH-RODA) activates and workshop led by the European Space Agency.
Cody Anderson
(USGS/WGCV Chair)
