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NASA NTRS2003

Assessment, Validation, and Refinement of the Atmospheric Correction Algorithm for the Ocean Color Sensors

The primary focus of this proposed research is for the atmospheric correction algorithm evaluation and development and satellite sensor calibration and characterization. It is well known that the atmospheric correction, which removes more than 90% of sensor-measured signals contributed from atmosphere in the visible, is the key procedure in the ocean color remote sensing (Gordon and Wang, 1994). The accuracy and effectiveness of the atmospheric correction directly affect the remotely retrieved ocean bio-optical products. On the other hand, for ocean color remote sensing, in order to obtain the required accuracy in the derived water-leaving signals from satellite measurements, an on-orbit vicarious calibration of the whole system, i.e., sensor and algorithms, is necessary. In addition, it is important to address issues of (i) cross-calibration of two or more sensors and (ii) in-orbit vicarious calibration of the sensor-atmosphere system. The goal of these researches is to develop methods for meaningful comparison and possible merging of data products from multiple ocean color missions. In the past year, much efforts have been on (a) understanding and correcting the artifacts appeared in the SeaWiFS-derived ocean and atmospheric produces; (b) developing an efficient method in generating the SeaWiFS aerosol lookup tables, (c) evaluating the effects of calibration error in the near-infrared (NIR) band to the atmospheric correction of the ocean color remote sensors, (d) comparing the aerosol correction algorithm using the singlescattering epsilon (the current SeaWiFS algorithm) vs. the multiple-scattering epsilon method, and (e) continuing on activities for the International Ocean-Color Coordinating Group (IOCCG) atmospheric correction working group. In this report, I will briefly present and discuss these and some other research activities.

Wang, Menghua↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

The INSTEP Monitoring Network: Merging High-and-Low Cost Measurements to Characterize California Wildfires

Despite challenges with data quality and scope, low-cost sensor networks have skyrocketed in popularity over the last 15 years, making air quality data available on refined spatial scales. More recently, studies have leveraged both high and low-quality instruments to create stronger “hybrid” models, with most studies focusing on particulate matter. Low-cost measurements typically represent ground-level emissions only, providing context for human health issues from climate change-driven events such as wildfires. Since low-cost sensors’ capabilities are localized, daily events and microclimates tend to dominate the data rather than larger regional or atmospheric trends. Likewise, their low cost explains their high uncertainty. In contrast, some regulatory-grade instruments produce column measurements as well, providing reliable information on a broader scope. To bridge this gap while expanding into gas-phase measurements, we deployed 12 air quality sensor packages in California, USA during the 2022 wildfire season. These INSTEP (Inexpensive Network Sensor Technology Exploring Pollution) monitors measure carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO2), ozone (O3), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and several hydrocarbons including methane (CH4) and formaldehyde (HCHO). Half of the monitors were co-located with remote sensing spectrometers: NASA Pandora and Total Column Carbon Observing Network (TCCON). The overlap in pollutants includes NO2, O3, and HCHO between the INSTEP monitors and the Pandora column measurements. TCCON covers column CO, CO2, and CH4, rounding out our comparison. Most of the monitors were distributed throughout the San Francisco Bay area, and an additional three were located within 100 km of Los Angeles. The sites ranged in geographic and population characteristics, including desert, mountainous, coastal, and urban locations. Since varying environmental conditions such as temperature and pressure are known to challenge sensor performance, we will apply newer sensor “calibration” techniques meant to combat this. We will normalize our sensor signals by z-scoring them prior to applying a single calibration model in the form of multivariate linear regression or an artificial neural network. While this technique has been validated for the hydrocarbon and ozone sensor types (metal oxide), it has not yet been tested on electrochemical and non-dispersive infrared sensors, which are also used in the INSTEP monitors. This will serve as a test to see if this normalization technique – or another – is most effective in accounting for environmental differences among sensors. Related data analysis efforts have found success with a variety of geospatial analysis techniques, including weighted network models in which high-quality instruments are given higher weights than their low-cost counterparts. Our preliminary analysis will focus on kriging, which uses a Gaussian algorithm to assign weights, providing estimated pollution levels at locations between monitors. Smoke trajectory and evolution will also be considered using both measurement types. We also aim to baseline subtract our emission estimates from each region to determine which portion of emissions are regional and local, further characterizing burn differences in northern and southern California fires. Future directions include using INSTEP jointly with TEMPO satellite data, and mobile deployments on aircraft and uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAV).

Low-cost sensors↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Delta Method Application for the Correlation of IR Detector Thermal Parasitic Loads with Statistically Accurate Results

The Linear Etalon Imaging Spectral Array (LEISA) is a cryogenic IR detector that is passively cooled below 110K. LEISA is part of the L’Ralph instrument, which is going on the Lucy mission, with planned flyby’s of the Trojan asteroids around 5.5 AU. One of the primary thermal challenges is to successfully quantify each significant parasitic heat flow value with statistical certainty.Simulation of flight-like thermal environments and correlation of thermal models is an important part of this challenge, which can be critical for thermally sensitive systems such as cryogenic detectors that are passively cooled. It is common practice during TVAC to achieve several thermal balance points and then to correlate several design variables in order to achieve the closest match to all balance points tested. This approach lends itself to high levels of uncertainty in the correlated values due to the cumulative effect of absolute temperature uncertainty and differences between the sensors used for the measurement. Accuracy can be improved with the use of more accurate sensors, by calibrating all sensors with respect to each other, and by using Zero-Q methodologies, all of which add cost and complexity to the test.The Delta Method uses the difference in temperature caused by the changes in the boundary conditions to calculate heat flows and/or thermal resistances across temperature differentials. This eliminates the problem of high uncertainties with absolute temperature measurements, and yields statistically accurate results down to the sensor resolution of 1mK at < 100K, by taking the sensor’s calibration errors out of the equation. During testing, this method relies on parametric variations around an initial balance point, by varying the boundary conditions of the different parasitic heat sources. The Delta Method, as well as its application on the LEISA thermal test, will be discussed in detail.

Daniel G. Bae↗

NASA NTRS2021

Additional Characterization of Dome-C to Improve its Use as an Invariant Visible Calibration Target

Dome-C is a recommended CEOS invariant target that has been utilized by the calibration community for several decades for monitoring onboard sensor calibration systems as well radiometric inter-comparisons. Dome-C is a high-altitude Earth target located on the East Antarctic interior plateau, which has a permanent bright, flat, and homogeneous snow-covered surface with little aerosol, cloud cover, snowfall, and water vapor burden. This paper describes angular directional models for characterizing the Dome-C top-of-atmosphere (TOA)radiances as a function of cosine solar zenith angle for pre-solstice and post-solstice conditions. The 0.86-μm channel Dome-C reflectance decreases over the summer due to snow metamorphosisis not observed by the visible channels. Coinciding Terra and AquaMODIS Dome-C reflectance showed occasional inter-annual anomalies when compared against the deep convective cloud and Libya-4 invariant targets observations. Further characterization of the Dome-C reflectances with the Dome-C surface broadband albedo, Antarctic Oscillation(AAO) index, and ozone concentration values were evaluated. A strong correlation with ozone was found for the 0.55-μm and 0.65-μm MODIS channels. The monthly Dome-C reflectances were linearly regressed with ozone to derive the ozone correction coefficients. The uncertainty in the Aqua-and Terra-MODIS Dome-C trends was reduced by half after applying ozone corrections to both the 0.55-μm and 0.65-μm channelTOA observations.

David R Doelling↗

NASA NTRS1982

LANDSAT-D conical scanner evaluation plan

The planned activities involved in the inflight sensor calibration and performance evaluation are discussed and the supporting software requirements are specified. The possible sensor error sources and their effects on sensor measurements are summarized. The methods by which the inflight sensor performance will be analyzed and the sensor modeling parameters will be calibrated are presented. In addition, a brief discussion on the data requirement for the study is provided.

Bilanow, S.↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Comparison of Detector Based and Source Based Absolute Radiance Standards

A detailed comparison of two separate radiometric calibration standards was conducted with analysis of error sources for each. One is a detector based standard, with radiance traceable to fundamental units using the electrical substitution method. The other is based on a calibrated field emission lamp (FEL) generating blackbody radiation. This study was motivated by the discontinuance of the FEL lamps by the manufacturer and a desire to calibrate sensors using non-blackbody spectral profiles. Three spectrometers were calibrated simultaneously by both methods to separate spectrometer artifacts from differences in the radiometric standards and error in the irradiance to radiance conversion procedure needed for the FEL. Conducting this study now is important to provide continuity between the extensive prior FEL based calibration database with a replacement method while calibrated FEL lamps are still available. This also begins a longer term repeatability study of the spectrometers used in this work for evaluation as calibrated transfer standards, usable with both monochromatic and broad spectrum radiance sources. Eliminating the tie to the FEL blackbody spectrum with a detector based standard allows for flexibility in the illumination source. In particular, for Earth science sensors intended for use with sunlit scenes, augmenting traditional tungsten halogen lighting with blue and ultraviolet light emitting diodes allows for a better match to the solar spectrum during laboratory testing.

radiometry↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Comparison of Detector Based and Source Based Absolute Radiance Standards

radiometry↗

NASA NTRS1993

Use of the Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer to Calibrate the Optical Sensor on Board the Japanese Earth Resources Satellite-1

In this paper, we describe an experiment to calibrate the Optical Sensor on board the Japanese Earth Resources Satellite-1 with data acquired by the Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS). This experiment establishes the suitability of AVIRIS for the calibration of spaceborne sensors in the 400 to 2500 nm spectral region.

spaceborne↗

NASA NTRS2003

Real-Time Attitude Independent Three Axis Magnetometer Calibration

In this paper new real-time approaches for three-axis magnetometer sensor calibration are derived. These approaches rely on a conversion of the magnetometer-body and geomagnetic-reference vectors into an attitude independent observation by using scalar checking. The goal of the full calibration problem involves the determination of the magnetometer bias vector, scale factors and non-orthogonality corrections. Although the actual solution to this full calibration problem involves the minimization of a quartic loss function, the problem can be converted into a quadratic loss function by a centering approximation. This leads to a simple batch linear least squares solution. In this paper we develop alternative real-time algorithms based on both the extended Kalman filter and Unscented filter. With these real-time algorithms, a full magnetometer calibration can now be performed on-orbit during typical spacecraft mission-mode operations. Simulation results indicate that both algorithms provide accurate integer resolution in real time, but the Unscented filter is more robust to large initial condition errors than the extended Kalman filter. The algorithms are also tested using actual data from the Transition Region and Coronal Explorer (TRACE).

Crassidis, John L.↗

NASA NTRS1999

Submillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite (SWAS) Launch and Early Orbit Support Experiences

The Submillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite (SWAS) was successfully launched on December 6, 1998 at 00:58 UTC. The two year mission is the fourth in the series of Small Explorer (SMEX) missions. SWAS is dedicated to the study of star formation and interstellar chemistry. SWAS was injected into a 635 km by 650 km orbit with an inclination of nearly 70 deg by an Orbital Sciences Corporation Pegasus XL launch vehicle. The Flight Dynamics attitude and navigation teams supported all phases of the early mission. This support included orbit determination, attitude determination, real-time monitoring, and sensor calibration. This paper reports the main results and lessons learned concerning navigation, support software, star tracker performance, magnetometer and gyroscope calibrations, and anomaly resolution. This includes information on spacecraft tip-off rates, first-day navigation problems, target acquisition anomalies, star tracker anomalies, and significant sensor improvements due to calibration efforts.

Kirschner, S.↗

NASA NTRS1999

Submillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite (SWAS) Launch and Early Orbit Support Experiences

Kirschner, S.↗

NASA NTRS2003

Pseudo Linear Gyro Calibration

Previous high fidelity onboard attitude algorithms estimated only the spacecraft attitude and gyro bias. The desire to promote spacecraft and ground autonomy and improvements in onboard computing power has spurred development of more sophisticated calibration algorithms. Namely, there is a desire to provide for sensor calibration through calibration parameter estimation onboard the spacecraft as well as autonomous estimation on the ground. Gyro calibration is a particularly challenging area of research. There are a variety of gyro devices available for any prospective mission ranging from inexpensive low fidelity gyros with potentially unstable scale factors to much more expensive extremely stable high fidelity units. Much research has been devoted to designing dedicated estimators such as particular Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) algorithms or Square Root Information Filters. This paper builds upon previous attitude, rate, and specialized gyro parameter estimation work performed with Pseudo Linear Kalman Filter (PSELIKA). The PSELIKA advantage is the use of the standard linear Kalman Filter algorithm. A PSELIKA algorithm for an orthogonal gyro set which includes estimates of attitude, rate, gyro misalignments, gyro scale factors, and gyro bias is developed and tested using simulated and flight data. The measurements PSELIKA uses include gyro and quaternion tracker data.

Harman, Richard↗

NASA NTRS2007

Analyzing Responses of Chemical Sensor Arrays

NASA is developing a third-generation electronic nose (ENose) capable of continuous monitoring of the International Space Station s cabin atmosphere for specific, harmful airborne contaminants. Previous generations of the ENose have been described in prior NASA Tech Briefs issues. Sensor selection is critical in both (prefabrication) sensor material selection and (post-fabrication) data analysis of the ENose, which detects several analytes that are difficult to detect, or that are at very low concentration ranges. Existing sensor selection approaches usually include limited statistical measures, where selectivity is more important but reliability and sensitivity are not of concern. When reliability and sensitivity can be major limiting factors in detecting target compounds reliably, the existing approach is not able to provide meaningful selection that will actually improve data analysis results. The approach and software reported here consider more statistical measures (factors) than existing approaches for a similar purpose. The result is a more balanced and robust sensor selection from a less than ideal sensor array. The software offers quick, flexible, optimal sensor selection and weighting for a variety of purposes without a time-consuming, iterative search by performing sensor calibrations to a known linear or nonlinear model, evaluating the individual sensor s statistics, scoring the individual sensor s overall performance, finding the best sensor array size to maximize class separation, finding optimal weights for the remaining sensor array, estimating limits of detection for the target compounds, evaluating fingerprint distance between group pairs, and finding the best event-detecting sensors.

Zhou, Hanying↗

NASA NTRS2019

Extreme Case of Spectral Band Difference Correction Between the OSIRIS-REX-NAVCAM2 and DSCOVR-EPIC Imagers

Earth-viewed images acquired during a recent asteroid intercept mission present a unique opportunity for radiometric calibration of visible imagers onboard a space exploration probe. Measurements from the CERES consistent DSCOVR-EPIC imager act as a reference in providing spatially, temporally, and angularly matched radiance values for deriving OSIRIS-REx-NavCam sensor calibration gains. The calibration is accomplished using an optimized all-sky tropical ocean ray-matching technique, which employs complex pixel remapping, navigation correction, and angular geometry consideration. Of critical consideration in this specific inter-calibration event is the extreme difference in spectral response function (SRF) width between the NavCam and EPIC imagers, which could cause a rather large bias. The NASA-LaRC SCIAMACHY based online spectral band adjustment factor (SBAF) calculation tool provides an empirical solution to such potential spectral-difference-induced biases through a high spectral- resolution hyper spectral convolution approach. The adjustments produced from this tool can effectively reduce the calibration gain bias of NavCam2 by nearly 6%, thereby adjusting the NavCam2 sensor to within 3.2% of its prelaunch calibration. These results highlight the capability of the SBAF tool to account for exceptionally disparate SRFs.

Scarino, Benjamin↗

NASA NTRS1972

End-to-end test of the electron-proton spectrometer

A series of end-to-end tests were performed to demonstrate the proper functioning of the complete Electron-Proton Spectrometer (EPS). The purpose of the tests was to provide experimental verification of the design and to provide a complete functional performance check of the instrument from the excitation of the sensors to and including the data processor and equipment test set. Each of the channels of the EPS was exposed to a calibrated beam of energetic particles, and counts were accumulated for a predetermined period of time for each of several energies. The counts were related to the known flux of particles to give a monodirectional response function for each channel. The measured response function of the test unit was compared to the response function determined for the calibration sensors from the data taken from the calibration program.

Cash, B. L.↗

NASA NTRS2008

Ground Facility for Vicarious Calibration of Skyborne Sensors

An automated ground facility, for vicarious radiometric calibration of airborne and spaceborne sensors of visible and infrared light has been established. In the term "vicarious calibration," "vicarious" is used in the sense of "in place of another," signifying "in place of laboratory calibration." Vicarious calibration involves the use of ground truth in the form of measurements by ground-viewing radiometers, a Sun-viewing photometer, and meteorological instruments positioned in a ground target area. The instrumentation at the facility includes a light-emitting-diode spectrometer (LSpec), which consists of eight tripod-mounted, ground-viewing radiometer units containing LEDs biased to operate as photodetectors (instead of light emitters) at their respective wavelengths. The LSpec provides an essentially continuous stream of measurements at eight discrete wavelengths. These are merged with spectral surface-reflectance measurements made on occasional site visits to obtain temporally continuous coverage with high spectral resolution.

Bruegge, Carol↗

NASA NTRS2012

Overview of Aqua MODIS 10-year On-orbit Calibration and Performance

Since launch in May 2002, Aqua MODIS has successfully operated for nearly 10 years, continuously collecting global datasets for scientific studies of key parameters of the earth's land, ocean, and atmospheric properties and their changes over time. The quality of these geophysical parameters relies on the input quality of sensor calibrated radiances. MODIS observations are made in 36 spectral bands with wavelengths ranging from visible (VIS) to longwave infrared (LWIR). Its reflective solar bands (RSB) are calibrated using data collected from its on-board solar diffuser and regularly scheduled lunar views. The thermal emissive bands (TEB) are calibrated using an on-board blackbody (BB). The changes in the sensor's spectral and spatial characteristics are monitored by an on-board spectroradiometric calibration assembly (SRCA). This paper presents an overview of Aqua MODIS 10-year on-orbit operation and calibration activities, from launch to present, and summarizes its on-orbit radiometric, spectral, and spatial calibration and characterization performance. In addition, it will illustrate and discuss on-orbit changes in sensor characteristics and corrections applied to continuously maintain the sensor level 1B (L1B) data quality, as well as lessons learned that could benefit future calibration efforts.

Xiong, X.↗

NASA NTRS1986

Spectroradiometric considerations for advanced land observing systems

Research aimed at improving the inflight absolute radiometric calibration of advanced land observing systems was initiated. Emphasis was on the satellite sensor calibration program at White Sands. Topics addressed include: absolute radiometric calibration of advanced remote sensing; atmospheric effects on reflected radiation; inflight radiometric calibration; field radiometric methods for reflectance and atmospheric measurement; and calibration of field relectance radiometers.

Slater, P. N.↗