60 minutes (working model)
A practical model of observation → trust → action.
~60 min
Observational Grammar
OG-001
Observational Grammar (OG) is the idea that sensors — satellites, radar, spectrometers, thermal cameras — can form a language of evidence about reality that operates independently of human bias, market incentives, or bureaucratic approval chains. Just as grammar gives structure to language, OG gives structure to what instruments can claim about the physical world. It is M33's foundational concept: build systems that let reality set the table, then let markets and decisions work within those constraints, rather than the other way around.
Latency: From Orbit to Application
COM-001
Latency in satellite systems is the total time between a sensor observing something on Earth and that observation becoming usable information. It is not one delay — it is a chain of them. Propagation through space, queuing at ground stations, decryption, format conversion, atmospheric correction, reprojection, tiling, indexing, and delivery. Some links are governed by physics and cannot be shortened. Others are engineering choices. Understanding where latency lives determines what questions you can answer with the data. A flood map delivered in 15 minutes can direct evacuations. The same map delivered in 48 hours is a historical record.
Analysis-Ready Data
DAT-004
Analysis-Ready Data (ARD) is satellite imagery that has been processed to a standard where it can be used directly for analysis without additional preprocessing. This means the image has been geometrically corrected (pixels are in the right geographic locations), radiometrically calibrated (pixel values represent meaningful physical quantities like surface reflectance rather than arbitrary digital numbers), atmospherically corrected (the atmosphere's distortion has been removed), and often cloud-masked (unusable pixels are flagged). ARD is the difference between receiving raw ingredients and receiving a prepared, measured, recipe-ready mise en place.
Data Provenance
SEC-001
Data provenance is the complete, verifiable record of where a piece of data came from, every transformation it underwent, and who or what performed those transformations. In satellite imagery and remote sensing, provenance is not a nice-to-have audit trail — it is the difference between evidence and hearsay.
Trusted Execution Environments for Geospatial Processing
SEC-003
A Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) is a hardware-enforced isolated region within a processor where code and data are protected from the rest of the system — including the operating system, hypervisor, and anyone with physical access to the machine. In geospatial processing, TEEs enable cryptographic proof that a specific transformation was applied to specific data, generated by hardware that the operator cannot tamper with. This is the mechanism that turns provenance from a claim into a proof.