Appendix a Missions and Sensors
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Appendix A Missions and Sensors This appendix contains descriptive and technical information on satellite and aircraft missions and the characteristics of their sensors. It commences by looking briefly at those programs intended principally for gathering weather information, and proceeds to missions for earth observational remote sensing, including hyperspectral and radar platforms and sensors. Sufficient detail is given on data characteristics so that implications for image processing and analysis can be understood. In most cases mechanical and signal handling properties are not given, except for a few historical and illustrative cases. A.1 Weather Satellite Sensors A.1.1 Polar Orbiting and Geosynchronous Satellites Two broad types of weather satellite are in common use. One is of the polar orbiting, or more generally low earth orbit, variety whereas the other is at geosynchronous altitudes. The former typically have orbits at altitudes of about 700 to 1500 km whereas the geostationary altitude is approximately 36,000 km (see Appendix B). Typical of the low orbit satellites are the current NOAA series (also referred to as Advanced TIROS-N, ATN), and their forerunners the TIROS, TOS and ITOS satellites. The principal sensor of interest from this book’s viewpoint is the NOAA AVHRR. This is described in Sect. A.1.2 following. The Nimbus satellites, while strictly test bed vehicles for a range of meteoro- logical and remote sensing sensors, also orbited at altitudes of around 1000 km. Nimbus sensors of interest include the Coastal Zone Colour Scanner (CZCS) and the Scanning Multichannel Microwave Radiometer (SMMR). Only the former is treated below. 390 A Missions and Sensors Geostationary meteorological satellites have been launched by the United States, Russia, India, China, ESA and Japan. These are placed in equatorial geosynchronous orbits. A.1.2 The NOAA AVHRR (Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer) TheAVHRRhas been designed to provide information for hydrologic, oceanographic and meteorologic studies, although data provided by the sensor does find application also to solid earth monitoring.An earlier version of theAVHRRcontained four wave- length bands. Table A.1 however lists the bands available on the current generation of instrument (NOAA 17). Table A.1. NOAA advanced very high resolution radiometer Spatial resolution 1.1 km at nadir Dynamic range 10 bit Swath width 2399 km Spectral bands: channel 1 0.58 − 0.68 µm channel 2 0.725 − 1.0 µm channel 3 3.55 − 3.93 µm channel 3a 1.58 − 1.64 µm channel 4 10.3 − 11.3 µm channel 5 11.5 − 12.5 µm A.1.3 The Nimbus CZCS (Coastal Zone Colour Scanner) The CZCS was a mirror scanning system, carried on Nimbus 7, designed to mea- sure chlorophyll concentration, sediment distribution and general ocean dynamics including sea surface temperature. Its characteristics are summarised in Table A.2. Table A.2. Nimbus coastal zone colour scanner Spatial resolution 825 m at nadir Dynamic range 8 bit Swath width 1566 km Spectral bands: channel 1 0.433 − 0.453 µm channel 2 0.510 − 0.530 µm channel 3 0.540 − 0.560 µm channel 4 0.660 − 0.680 µm channel 5 0.700 − 0.800 µm channel 6 10.5 − 12.5 µm A.2 Earth Resource Satellite Sensors in the Visible and Infrared Regions 391 A.1.4 GMS VISSR (Visible and Infrared Spin Scan Radiometer) and GOES Imager Geostationary meteorological satellites such as GMS (Japan) and the earlier GOES (USA) are spin stabilized with their spin axis oriented almost north-south. The pri- mary sensor on these, the VISSR, scans the earth’s surface by making use of the satellite spin to acquire one line of image data (as compared with an oscillating mir- ror in the case of AVHRR, CZCS, MSS and TM sensors), and by utilizing a stepping motor to adjust the angle of view on each spin to acquire successive line of data (on orbiting satellites it is the motion of the vehicle relative to the earth that dis- places the sensor between successive scan lines). The characteristics of the VISSR are summarised in Table A.3. The most recent GOES environmental satellites are 3 axis stabilised and carry a GOES Imager with characteristics as shown in Table A.3. Table A.3. VISSR and GOES Imager characteristics Band Spatial resolution Dynamic range (µm) at nadir (km) (bits) VISSR 0.55 – 0.90 1.25 6 (visible) 6.7 – 7.0 5 8 10.5 – 11.5 5 8 11.5 – 12.5 5 8 (thermal infrared) GOES Imager 0.55 – 0.75 1 10 3.80 – 4.00 1 10 6.50 – 7.00 1 10 10.20 – 11.20 1 10 11.50 – 12.50 1 10 A.2 Earth Resource Satellite Sensors in the Visible and Infrared Regions A.2.1 The Landsat System The Landsat earth resources satellite system was the first designed to provide near global coverage of the earth’s surface on a regular and predictable basis. The first three Landsats had identical orbit characteristics, as summarised in Table A.4. The orbits were near polar and sun synchronous – i.e., the orbital plane precessed about the earth at the same rate that the sun appears to move across the 392 A Missions and Sensors Table A.4. Landsat 1, 2, 3 orbit characteristics face of the earth. In this manner data was acquired at about the same local time on every pass. All satellites acquired image data nominally at 9:30 a.m. local time on a descend- ing (north to south) path; in addition Landsat 3 obtained thermal data on a night-time ascending orbit for the few months that its thermal sensor was operational. Fourteen complete orbits were covered each day, and the fifteenth, at the start of the next day, was 159 km advanced from orbit 1, thus giving a second day coverage contiguous with that of the first day. This advance in daily coverage continued for 18 days and then repeated. Consequently complete coverage of the earth’s surface was given, with 251 revolutions in 18 days. The orbital characteristics of the second generation Landsats, commencing with Landsats 4 and 5, are different from those of their predecessors. Again image data is acquired nominally at 9:30 a.m. local time in a near polar, sun synchronous orbit; however the spacecraft are at the lower altitude of 705 km. This lower orbit gives a repeat cycle of 16 days at 14.56 orbits per day. This corresponds to a total of 233 revolutions every cycle. Table A.5 summarises the Landsat 4, 5 orbit characteristics. Unlike the orbital pattern for the first generation Landsats, the day 2 ground pattern for Landsats 4 and 5 is not adjacent and immediately to the west of the day 1 orbital pattern. Rather it is displaced the equivalent of 7 swath centres to the west. Over 16 days this leads to the repeat cycle. Landsat 6, launched in 1993, was not successfully placed in orbit and was lost over the Atlantic Ocean. Landsat 7 is a similar satellite in all respects. Whereas Landsats 1, 2 and 3 contained on-board tape recorders for temporary storage of image data when the satellites were out of view of earth stations, Landsats 4 and 5 do not, and depend on transmission either to earth stations directly or via the geosynchronous communication satellite TDRS (Tracking and Data Relay Satellite). TDRS is a high capacity communication satellite that is used to relay data from a Table A.5. Orbit parameters for Landsats 4, 5, 7 A.2 Earth Resource Satellite Sensors in the Visible and Infrared Regions 393 number of missions, including the Space Shuttle. Its ground receiving station is in White Sands, New Mexico from which data is relayed via domestic communication satellites. Landsat 7 also uses TDRS for data downlinking but has an on-board solid state recorder for temporary storage. A.2.2 The Landsat Instrument Complement Three imaging instruments have been used with the Landsat satellites to date. These are the Return Beam Vidicon (RBV), the Multispectral Scanner (MSS) and the The- matic Mapper (TM). Table A.6 shows the actual imaging payload for each satellite along with historical data on launch and out-of-service dates. Two different RBV’s were used: a multispectral RBV package was incorporated on the first two satellites, while a panchromatic instrument with a higher spatial resolution was used on Land- sat 3. The MSS on Landsat 3 also contained a thermal band; however this operated only for a few months. Table A.6. Landsat payloads, launch and out of service dates The MSS was not used after Landsat 5. With the launch of Landsat 7 an Enhanced Thematic Mapper + (ETM+) was added. The following sections provide an overview of the three Landsat instruments, especially from a data characteristic point-of-view. A.2.3 The Return Beam Vidicon (RBV) As the name suggests the RBV’s were essentially television camera-like instruments that took “snapshot” images of the earth’s surface along the ground track of the satellite. Image frames of 185 km × 185 km were acquired with each shot, repeated at 25 s intervals to give contiguous frames in the along track direction at the equivalent ground speed of the satellite. 394 A Missions and Sensors Three RBV cameras were used on Landsats 1 and 2, distinguished by different transmission filters that allowed three spectral bands of data to be recorded as shown in Table A.7. On Landsat 3 two RBV cameras were used; however both operated panchromatically and were focussed to record data swaths of 98 km, overlapped to give a total swath of about 185 km.