Landsat-8 Sensor Characterization and Calibration

Abstract

Landsat-8 was launched on 11 February 2013 with two new Earth Imaging sensors to provide a continued data record with the previous Landsats. For Landsat-8, pushbroom technology was adopted, and the reflective bands and thermal bands were split into two instruments. The Operational Land Imager (OLI) is the reflective band sensor and the Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS), the thermal. In addition to these fundamental changes, bands were added, spectral bandpasses were refined, dynamic range and data quantization were improved, and numerous other enhancements were implemented. As in previous Landsat missions, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and United States Geological Survey (USGS) cooperated in the development, launch and operation of the Landsat-8 mission. One key aspect of this cooperation was in the characterization and calibration of the instruments and their data. This Special Issue documents the efforts of the joint USGS and NASA calibration team and affiliates to characterize the new sensors and their data for the benefit of the scientific and application users of the Landsat archive. A key scientific use of Landsat data is to assess changes in the land-use and land cover of the Earth’s surface over the now 43-year record. [...]

Radiometric Cross-Calibration of GF-4 in Multispectral Bands

“…The calibration accuracy and continuity of the Landsat-8/OLI are performed through pre-launch, on-board, and vicarious calibration techniques [11,12]. Prior to launch, radiance calibration is primarily used in an integration sphere, with the assistance of noise characterization, linearity, stray light, bright target recovery, and ghosting [13,14].…”

Cross-Calibration of GF-1/WFV over a Desert Site Using Landsat-8/OLI Imagery and ZY-3/TLC Data

“…The Landsat-8 was launched to continue Landsat's mission of monitoring Earth systems and capturing changes at a relatively high spatial resolution [11,12]. In addition to fulfilling the Landsat's goal in data continuity, the Landsat-8 offers significant improvements in both data quality and spectral coverage [11][12][13][14]. The Landsat-8 has an Operational Land Imager, which is abbreviated as OLI (hereafter, the OLI sensor on-board the Landsat-8 satellite is written as Landsat-8/OLI), and a Thermal Infrared Sensor on-board.…”

“…(1) The radiometric quantization and signal-to-noise characteristics of the Landsat-8/OLI are an improvement over the Landsat-7/ETM+ [14]. The OLI data are quantized into 12 bit, which provides 16 times the radiometric resolution of the 8-bit data from the previous Landsat instruments [17].…”

“…The calibration accuracy and continuity of the Landsat-8/OLI are performed through pre-launch, on-board and vicarious calibration techniques [13,14]. Prior to launch, radiance calibration is primarily used in an integration sphere, with the assistance of noise characterization, linearity, stray light, bright target recovery and ghosting [19,20].…”

“…Prior to launch, radiance calibration is primarily used in an integration sphere, with the assistance of noise characterization, linearity, stray light, bright target recovery and ghosting [19,20]. OLI includes an on-board radiometric calibration system to monitor changes in performance throughout the mission time, and techniques such as lunar views and side slither manoeuvers are also used to monitor the calibration system of OLI [14]. During the commissioning phase, the Landsat-8 is temporarily placed in an intermediary orbit, where it drifts relative to the Landsat-7.…”