Full lifecycle development of transitioning remote sensing research to operational applications

A planned life cycle development improves the transition of remote sensing research to operations. The application lifecycle can be broadly divided into three stages: user needs and technical feasibility analysis, prototype development, and production and deployment. There are several checks within each phase to ensure that the final operational system adequately meets users´ needs. The authors´ experience in NASA´s Synergy program shows that the life cycle process should be user centric for the application to be successful