Abstract
With the launch of Landsat 8 on February 11, 2013, the Landsat program entered a new age of improved performance with the Operational Land Imager (OLI) and the Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) instruments. Developed by Ball Aerospace, the OLI has refined spectral coverage at the traditional Landsat wavelengths as well as additional spectral channels in the deep blue and SWIR regions. TIRS, which was developed by Goddard Space Flight Center hosts two spectral bands in the 10-12 um range. Both instruments are pushbroom scanners with improved signal-to-noise ratio, dynamic range, and radiometric artifact suppression as compared to their predecessor, the Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+). The purpose of this paper is to report on the radiometric performance of the Landsat 8 instruments based on the on-orbit initial verification (OIV) period efforts that occurred during the first 90 days after launch. Because of the pushbroom nature of these instruments, and their improved radiometric resolution, striping and banding performance was a critical first issue to assess during OIV. Both instruments have exhibited minimal striping and banding artifacts both in a qualitative and quantitative sense as will be shown in the presentation. Absolute calibration for the instruments has been performed using on-board calibration devices as well as vicarious methods. This paper will focus on board calibration methods and show the results of these analyses along with the subsequent calibration derived at the end of OIV.
Landsat-8(formerly LDCM): Mission Update and Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) Initial Post Launch Performance
With the launch of Landsat 8 on February 11, 2013, the Landsat program entered a new age of improved performance with the Operational Land Imager (OLI) and the Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) instruments. Developed by Ball Aerospace, the OLI has refined spectral coverage at the traditional Landsat wavelengths as well as additional spectral channels in the deep blue and SWIR regions. TIRS, which was developed by Goddard Space Flight Center hosts two spectral bands in the 10-12 um range. Both instruments are pushbroom scanners with improved signal-to-noise ratio, dynamic range, and radiometric artifact suppression as compared to their predecessor, the Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+). The purpose of this paper is to report on the radiometric performance of the Landsat 8 instruments based on the on-orbit initial verification (OIV) period efforts that occurred during the first 90 days after launch. Because of the pushbroom nature of these instruments, and their improved radiometric resolution, striping and banding performance was a critical first issue to assess during OIV. Both instruments have exhibited minimal striping and banding artifacts both in a qualitative and quantitative sense as will be shown in the presentation. Absolute calibration for the instruments has been performed using on-board calibration devices as well as vicarious methods. This paper will focus on board calibration methods and show the results of these analyses along with the subsequent calibration derived at the end of OIV.