MISR in-flight camera geometric model calibration and georectification performance

In order to facilitate a unique georectification approach implemented for Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) data, specific calibration datasets need to be derived during flight. In the case of the spaceborne MISR instrument, with its unique configuration of nine fixed pushbroom cameras, continuous and autonomous coregistration and geolocation of image data are required prior to the application of scientific retrieval algorithms. In-flight-generated calibration datasets are required to (a) assure accuracy, (b) reduce processing load, and (c) support autonomous aspects of the processing algorithm. This paper describes the in-flight geometric calibration approach with the focus on the first year of activities and the georectification performance achieved.     

Prelaunch and in-flight radiometric calibration of the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS)

With 2378 infrared spectral channels ranging in wavelength from 3.7-15.4 /spl mu/m, the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) represents a quantum leap in spaceborne sounding instruments. Each channel of the AIRS instrument has a well-defined spectral bandshape and must be radiometrically calibrated to standards developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. This paper defines the algorithms, methods, and test results of the prelaunch radiometric calibration of the AIRS infrared channels and the in-flight calibration approach. Derivation of the radiometric transfer equations is presented with prelaunch measurements of the radiometric accuracy achieved on measurements of independent datasets.     

The spinning Astrid-2 satellite used for modeling the Earth's mainmagnetic field

The Swedish micro-satellite Astrid-2 was successfully launched into a near polar orbit in December 1998. Despite the fact that the primary science mission was auroral research, the magnetic instrument was designed to accomplish high-resolution and high-precision vector field magnetic measurements, and therefore mapping of the Earth's magnetic field was possible. The spacecraft spins about a highly stable axis in space. This fact and the globally distributed data make the magnetic measurements well suited for the estimate of a magnetic field model at the spacecraft altitude (about 1000 km). This paper describes the initial analysis of the Astrid-2 magnetic data. As a result of the study of a single day (February 7, 1999), magnetically fairly quiet, it was possible to in-flight adjust the calibration of the magnetometer and find a magnetic field model fitting the scalar component of the measurements to better than 5 nT_rms for latitudes equatorward of 50°. Several methods for field modeling are discussed in this paper under the assumption that the direction of the spin axis in inertial space is nearly constant, and this assumption is corroborated by the observations. The approximate inertial orientation of the magnetometer could then be determined simultaneously with the instrument intrinsic calibration and the estimate of main field model coefficients     

The determination of surface salinity with the European SMOS space mission

The European Space Agency Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission aims at obtaining global maps of soil moisture and sea surface salinity from space for large-scale and climatic studies. It uses an L-band (1400-1427 MHz) Microwave Interferometric Radiometer by Aperture Synthesis to measure brightness temperature of the earth's surface at horizontal and vertical polarizations (T/sub h/ and T/sub v/). These two parameters will be used together to retrieve the geophysical parameters. The retrieval of salinity is a complex process that requires the knowledge of other environmental information and an accurate processing of the radiometer measurements. Here, we present recent results obtained from several studies and field experiments that were part of the SMOS mission, and highlight the issues still to be solved.     

GF-5卫星多角度偏振成像仪在轨偏振定标

2018年5月,我国成功发射了高分5号卫星,其上搭载了多角度偏振成像仪。卫星载荷受发射时的振动、在轨空间环境变化以及元器件电路系统老化等因素的影响,各种辐射特性发生变化,从而导致整个载荷辐射性能与在轨前的实验室定标结果之间存在一定偏差。基于海洋耀光对高分5号卫星多角度偏振成像仪的偏振测量定标的方法,并利用在轨测试期间数据,对载荷进行了初步的偏振辐射定标测试。测试结果表明, 3个偏振波段(490, 670, 865 nm)线偏振度测量值与理论值有很好的一致性,平均偏差分别约为$-$0.03、 $-$0.04、$-$0.01,载荷发射前后偏振测量状态未发生明显改变。基于自然目标的在轨替代定标方法,还可用于多角度偏振成像仪偏振辐射性能随时间变化情况的长期监测。     

Some methods for magnetometer zero-level determination

Zero-level determination is an important aspect of the processing of magnetometer observations made onboard spacecrafts. Due to the presence of instrument offset drift as well as magnetic fields produced by the spacecraft, such a zero-level determination requires in-flight methods in addition to preflight calibration. Two different such techniques have been studied, taking advantage of observations made by instruments other than the magnetometer. The first is based on measurements obtained by electron drift instruments, originally designed to measure electric fields. The authors discuss the applicability of such instruments to determine magnetometer offsets. The second method is based on particle pressure tensor measurements, where pressure anisotropy is used to determine the magnetic field direction     

MIRAS end-to-end calibration: application to SMOS L1 processor

End-to-end calibration of the Microwave Imaging Radiometer by Aperture Synthesis (MIRAS) radiometer refers to processing the measured raw data up to dual-polarization brightness temperature maps over the earth's surface, which is the level 1 product of the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission. The process starts with a self-correction of comparators offset and quadrature error and is followed by the calibration procedure itself. This one is based on periodically injecting correlated and uncorrelated noise to all receivers in order to measure their relevant parameters, which are then used to correct the raw data. This can deal with most of the errors associated with the receivers but does not correct for antenna errors, which must be included in the image reconstruction algorithm. Relative S-parameters of the noise injection network and of the input switch are needed as additional data, whereas the whole process is independent of the exact value of the noise source power and of the distribution network physical temperature. On the other hand, the approach relies on having at least one very well-calibrated reference receiver, which is implemented as a noise injection radiometer. The result is the calibrated visibility function, which is inverted by the image reconstruction algorithm to get the brightness temperature as a function of the director cosines at the antenna reference plane. The final step is a coordinate rotation to obtain the horizontal and vertical brightness temperature maps over the earth. The procedures presented are validated using a complete SMOS simulator previously developed by the authors.     

Design and field-of-view calibration of 114-660-GHz optics of the Earth observing system microwave limb sounder

This paper describes the optics design and field-of-view (FOV) calibration for five radiometers covering 114-660 GHz which share a common antenna in the Microwave Limb Sounder instrument on the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Aura satellite. Details of near-field pattern measurements are presented. Estimated systematic scaling uncertainties (3/spl sigma/) on calibrated limb emissions, due to FOV calibration uncertainties, are below 0.4%. 3/spl sigma/ uncertainties in beamwidth and relative pointing of radiometer boresights are 0.006/spl deg/ and 0.003/spl deg/, respectively. The uncertainty in modeled instrument response, due to the scan dependence of FOV patterns, is less than /spl plusmn/0.24 K equivalent black-body temperature. Refinements to the calibration using in-flight data are presented.     

Impact of horizontal and vertical heterogeneities on retrievals using multiangle microwave brightness temperature data

This paper investigates the impact of heterogeneity at the land surface on geophysical parameters retrieved from multiangle microwave brightness temperature data, such as would be obtained from the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission. Synthetic brightness temperature data were created using the Common Land (land surface) Model, coupled with a microwave emission model and set within the framework of the North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS). Soil moisture, vegetation optical depth, and effective physical temperature were retrieved using a multiobjective calibration routine similar to the proposed SMOS retrieval algorithm for a typical on-axis range of look angles. The impact of heterogeneity both in the near-surface profiles of soil moisture and temperature and in the land cover on the accuracy of the retrievals was examined. There are significant errors in the retrieved parameters over regions with steep gradients in the near-surface soil moisture profile. These errors are approximately proportional to the difference in the soil water content between the top (at 0.7 cm) and second layer (at 2.7 cm) of the land surface model. The errors resulting from heterogeneity in the land cover are smaller and increase nonlinearly with increasing land-surface heterogeneity (represented by the standard deviation of the optical depth within the pixel). The most likely use of retrieved soil moisture is through assimilation into an LDAS for improved initiation of weather and climate models. Given that information on the soil moisture profile is already available within the LDAS, the error in the retrieved soil moisture as a result of the near-surface profile can be corrected for. The potential errors as a result of land-surface heterogeneity can also be assessed for use in the assimilation process.     

AMIRAS—An Airborne MIRAS Demonstrator

This paper describes AMIRAS, an airborne demonstrator of the Microwave Imaging Radiometer with Aperture Synthesis, which is the instrument onboard ESA's Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission. The main electrical, mechanical, thermal, and control elements of the demonstrator are shown, together with its capabilities and performances as demonstrator of the spaceborne instrument. AMIRAS main tests inside an anechoic chamber, field ground experiments, and its first two maiden flights are reported, and some results of these tests are highlighted. AMIRAS will further be used in some calibration and validation campaigns of the SMOS mission.     

A combined modeling and multispectral/multiresolution remote sensing approach for disaggregation of surface soil moisture: application to SMOS configuration

A new physically based disaggregation method is developed to improve the spatial resolution of the surface soil moisture extracted from the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) data. The approach combines the 40-km resolution SMOS multiangular brightness temperatures and 1-km resolution auxiliary data composed of visible, near-infrared, and thermal infrared remote sensing data and all the surface variables involved in the modeling of land surface-atmosphere interaction available at this scale (soil texture, atmospheric forcing, etc.). The method successively estimates a relative spatial distribution of soil moisture with fine-scale auxiliary data, and normalizes this distribution at SMOS resolution with SMOS data. The main assumption relies on the relationship between the radiometric soil temperature inverted from the thermal infrared and the microwave soil moisture. Based on synthetic data generated with a land surface model, it is shown that the radiometric soil temperature can be used as a tracer of the spatial variability of the 0-5 cm soil moisture. A sensitivity analysis shows that the algorithm remains stable for big uncertainties in auxiliary data and that the uncertainty in SMOS observation seems to be the limiting factor. Finally, a simple application to the SGP97/AVHRR data illustrates the usefulness of the approach.     

SMOS: The Mission and the System

Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) is an Earth observation mission developed by the European Space Agency in cooperation with the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales, France and the Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology, Spain, whose main objective is to provide global maps of soil moisture over land and sea surface salinity over oceans. This paper describes the SMOS mission in terms of the mission objectives and associated key system requirements, the conceptual implementation of the mission and corresponding system architecture, major building blocks and associated functions, the SMOS selected polar orbit and characteristics, and SMOS satellite attitude modes for the different phases of the mission and for the calibration of the Microwave Imaging Radiometer with Aperture Synthesis instrument.     

In-flight absolute calibration of the Landsat-5 TM on the test site Salar de Uyuni

In Brazil, the increase of the application of quantitative approaches in the natural resources studies using remote sensing technology has required knowledge about the radiometric conditions of remote sensors as the Thematic Mapper (TM) and the Enhanced TM Plus, for instance. The establishment of a correlation between radiometric data and biophysical and geophysical ones has become a frequent need in the Brazilian remote sensing community, and it has increased the demand of calibration coefficients in order to transform digital numbers to physical values like radiance and reflectance. Since the China-Brazil Environmental Remote Sensing Satellite became a reality, the necessity to perform calibration campaigns increased significantly. Following Price and other researcher's suggestions, an in-flight absolute calibration of the Landsat-5 data was carried out in the Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia. It was only possible to determine calibration coefficients for bands TM2, TM3, and TM4 due to the saturation of band TM1 and surface moisture conditions that impacted the TM5 and TM7. The methodology applied here seemed to be sufficient to determine valid calibration coefficients for orbital sensors.     

FY-2C发射前后可见光星上定标的比较

为了提高FY-2C的定量化应用,监测遥感仪器的长期变化,为扫描辐射计设计了可见光星上定标器.可见光星上定标器包括工作原理、光机设计、试验方法和在轨定标数据推算.发射前定标试验利用平面镜将太阳引入辐射计星上定标装置,获取电信号和计数值;在轨后每天午夜辐射计获取太阳像并输出计数值.通过分析发射前后所获取的定标图像和数据,并结合两年多的在轨运行状况,检验辐射计可见通道的探测性能,以确定辐射计的运行状态,判断可见光通道的衰减,并作为定量应用的参考.     

The microwave radiometer aboard ERS-1.1. Characteristics andperformances

The microwave radiometer onboard ERS-1 has two channels at 23.8 and 35.6 GHz. It is a nadir pointing sensor, which is aimed at the correction of the altimeter tropospheric path delay. The characteristics of the instrument are described, and its performance is established from ground calibration results. Using early data obtained after launch, the in-flight engineering calibration is presented, showing that the radiometer behavior is nominal. The gain stability permits noise reduction, and the radiometer performance appears to be as good as specified     

Two-dimensional synthetic aperture images over a land surface scene

The Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) space mission is currently undergoing phase-B studies at the European Space Agency. The SMOS payload is an L-band interferometric radiometer based on a two-dimensional aperture synthesis concept. This paper presents the first images obtained by a demonstrator of the SMOS instrument over land surfaces at the Avignon test site in 1999     

HJ-1A/B星CCD相机在轨辐射性能检测分析

为检测分析HJ-1A/B星CCD相机在轨辐射探测性能及其辐射定标的有效性,提出了基于多种光学特性地面目标的在轨检测方法。首先,介绍了HJ-1A/B星CCD相机在轨辐射性能检测方法,并基于2013年HJ-1A/B卫星地面同步观测试验数据,获取了HJ-1A/B星过境时刻的卫星入瞳处等效辐亮度。然后以该等效辐亮度为基准,对HJ-1A/B星CCD相机历次在轨辐射定标结果进行检验,分析HJ-1A/B星CCD相机的在轨运行期间辐射探测性能变化趋势。结果表明：HJ-1A/B星在轨运行过程中,辐射性能在不断发生变化;在轨运行5年多时间里,HJ-1A/B星的CCD相机各波段的辐射性能平均衰变量最低为3.7%,最大为39.6%;为保证遥感数据的定量化精度,定期的在轨绝对辐射定标十分必要。     

An Assessment of a Ka-Band Radar Interferometer Mission Accuracy Over Eurasian Rivers

The Water Elevation Recovery satellite mission is dedicated to the determination of land surface water extent, elevation, and slope using a Ka-band radar interferometer (KaRIn) as its primary instrument. Determining these parameters to the accuracy desired for hydrologic applications is challenging. The scientific objectives of the mission have been set up to 10 cm for the height budget and 10 $muhbox{rad}$ (1 cm/1 km) for the slope budget. In this paper, we implement a Virtual Mission simulation and use it to examine the measurement performances for three case studies in Europe: a relatively small river such as the Meuse in Northern Western Europe, the Lena river in Russia, one of the major Siberian rivers, and Lake Leman in Western Europe. We simulate KaRIn data with the associated instrument and geophysical error sources and implement ground processing techniques to go from the original raw data to science data. We examine the impact of external errors in detail and implement calibration techniques that rely on the use of ancillary topographic data, such as the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission digital elevation model (DEM). We find that the impact of external errors can be reduced to a few centimeters. The random error budget can also be reduced below 10 cm by means of appropriate processing. The scientific requirements of the mission are shown to be met for all cases.      

SIR-C data quality and calibration results

The SIR-C/X-SAR imaging radar took its first flight on the Space Shuttle Endeavour in April 1994 and flew for a second time in October 1994. This multifrequency radar has fully polarimetric capability at L- and C-band, and a single polarization at X-band (X-SAR). The Endeavour missions were designated the Space Radar Laboratory-1 (SRL-1) and -2 (SRL-2). Calibration of polarimetric L- and C-band data for all the different modes SIR-C offers is an especially complicated problem. The solution involves extensive analysis of pre-flight test data to come up with a model of the system, analysis of in-flight test data to determine the antenna pattern and gains of the system during operation, and analysis of data from over fourteen calibration sites distributed around the SIR-C/X-SAR orbit track. The SRL missions were the first time a multifrequency polarimetric imaging radar employing a phased array antenna has been flown in space. Calibration of SIR-C data products involved some unique technical problems given the complexity of the radar system. In this paper, the approach adopted for calibration of SIR-C data is described and the calibration performance of the data products is presented