SoilPulse-ET

SoilPulse-ET is a NASA Space to Soil Challenge Phase 1 software artifact for a SmallSat onboard triage concept supporting regenerative-agriculture water-stress follow-up.

The core idea is resource discipline under a limited satellite contact window. SoilPulse-ET scores candidate tiles, tracks event priority and evidence quality, then chooses one of three packet actions:

• priority_chip: send a higher-detail observation chip
• feature_summary: send compact statistics and metadata
• defer: send nothing for this contact

The current artifact is a transparent policy demonstrator. It includes runnable policy code, demo fixtures, tests, budget metrics, paper documentation, and the video slide deck used for the Phase 1 pitch.

NASA Data Anchor

The NASA data anchor is:

ECOSTRESS Tiled Evapotranspiration Instantaneous and Daytime L3 Global 70 m V002
DOI: 10.5067/ECOSTRESS/ECO_L3T_JET.002

The best current demo fixture combines one ECOSTRESS/AppEEARS-derived knowledge-gap row with labeled synthetic mission-scenario rows so reviewers can inspect both NASA data lineage and the onboard resource policy.

Submission Paper

The Phase 1 paper is included here:

docs/PAPER_FINAL_CANDIDATE.pdf

Pitch Video

The submitted pitch video is available here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RrxAeW47VE

Video Slide Deck

The slide deck used for the submitted pitch video is included here:

docs/VIDEO_SLIDE_DECK.pdf
docs/VIDEO_SLIDE_DECK.typ
docs/assets/starry_night_far.svg

Supporting docs:

• docs/EXECUTIVE_SUMMARY.md
• docs/MISSION_CONCEPT.md
• docs/ARCHITECTURE.md
• docs/RESOURCE_BUDGET.md
• docs/CODE_WALKTHROUGH.md
• docs/REPRODUCIBILITY.md
• docs/NEAR_TERM_VALIDATION_AND_HARDENING.md

Quick Start

python3 -m venv .venv
.venv/bin/python -m pip install --upgrade pip
.venv/bin/python -m pip install -e '.[dev]'
make hybrid-demo

Expected headline metric from the hybrid demo:

224.0 KiB used versus 784.0 KiB full-chip baseline
560.0 KiB / 71.43% downlink saved
2/2 high-stress candidates retained
1/1 cloudy candidates deferred

The 71.43% figure is byte savings, not the percentage of tiles deferred. In the hybrid fixture, the policy selects two full chips plus two compact feature summaries and defers four tiles.

Verification

Run the non-credentialed verification path:

make final-check

This runs import smoke checks, local data manifest generation, synthetic demo, hybrid demo, fixture builders, event-hunt scoring, and tests.

Optional Credentialed ECOSTRESS Path

The AppEEARS integration is present but requires Earthdata credentials. Raw downloads and credentials are intentionally not committed.

EARTHDATA_USERNAME='YOUR_USERNAME' EARTHDATA_PASSWORD='YOUR_PASSWORD' make appeears-campaign

Repository Scope

This repository is the public-facing challenge artifact. It contains the runnable policy demo, tests, selected documentation, final Phase 1 paper, and video slide deck. Lab notes, private process files, local submission videos, raw data, and credentials are intentionally excluded.