Postlaunch assessment of the response versus scan angle for the thermal emissive bands of visible infrared imaging radiometer suite on-board the Suomi national polar-orbiting partnership satellite

Aisheng Wu; Xiaoxiong Xiong; Kwofu Chiang

doi:10.1117/1.JRS.11.044002

7 November 2017 Postlaunch assessment of the response versus scan angle for the thermal emissive bands of visible infrared imaging radiometer suite on-board the Suomi national polar-orbiting partnership satellite

Aisheng Wu, Xiaoxiong Xiong, Kwofu Chiang

Author Affiliations +

Journal of Applied Remote Sensing, Vol. 11, Issue 4, 044002 (November 2017). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JRS.11.044002

Abstract

The visible infrared imaging radiometer suite (VIIRS) is a key sensor carried on the Suomi national polar-orbiting partnership (S-NPP) satellite, which was launched in October 2011. It has several on-board calibration components, including a solar diffuser and a solar diffuser stability monitor for the reflective solar bands, a V-groove blackbody for the thermal emissive bands (TEB), and a space view port for background subtraction. These on-board calibrators are located at fixed scan angles. The VIIRS response versus scan angle (RVS) was characterized prelaunch in lab ambient conditions and is currently used to characterize the on-orbit response for all scan angles relative to the calibrator scan angle. Since the RVS is vitally important to the quality of calibrated radiance products, several independent studies were performed to analyze the prelaunch RVS measurement data. A spacecraft level pitch maneuver was scheduled during the first 3 months of intensive Cal/Val. The S-NPP pitch maneuver provided a rare opportunity for VIIRS to make observations of deep space over the entire range of Earth view scan angles, which can be used to characterize the TEB RVS. This study provides our analysis of the pitch maneuver data and assessment of the derived TEB RVS by comparison with prelaunch results. In addition, the stability of the RVS after the first 5 years of operation is examined using observed brightness temperatures (BT) over a clear ocean at various angles of incidence (AOI). To reduce the impact of variations in the BT measurements, the daily overpasses collected over the ocean are screened for cloud contamination, normalized to the results obtained at the blackbody AOI, and averaged each year.

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Aisheng Wu, Xiaoxiong Xiong, and Kwofu Chiang "Postlaunch assessment of the response versus scan angle for the thermal emissive bands of visible infrared imaging radiometer suite on-board the Suomi national polar-orbiting partnership satellite," Journal of Applied Remote Sensing 11(4), 044002 (7 November 2017). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JRS.11.044002

Received: 21 July 2017; Accepted: 20 October 2017; Published: 7 November 2017

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