Terra mission operations: Launch to the present (and beyond)

Abstract

The Terra satellite, flagship of NASA's long-term Earth Observing System (EOS) Program, continues to provide useful earth science observations well past its 5-year design lifetime. This paper describes the evolution of Terra operations, including challenges and successes and the steps taken to preserve science requirements and prolong spacecraft life. Working cooperatively with the Terra science and instrument teams, including NASA's international partners, the mission operations team has successfully kept the Terra operating continuously, resolving challenges and adjusting operations as needed. Terra retains all of its observing capabilities (except Short Wave Infrared) despite its age. The paper also describes concepts for future operations. This paper will review the Terra spacecraft mission successes and unique spacecraft component designs that provided significant benefits extending mission life and science. In addition, it discusses special activities as well as anomalies and corresponding recovery efforts. Lastly, it discusses future plans for continued operations.

Automated Attitude Determination for Pushbroom Sensors Based on Robust Image Matching

“…Additionally, the ASTER project has provided sight vectors in L1A products which are equivalent to line-of-sight vector directions for each pixel in ASTER's camera-centered coordinate, and using the direction, we can obtain accurate V C,i . Note that ASTER does not have any clear optical distortion and the direction of the line-of-sight vector for each pixel of ASTER is well determined in ASTER's camera coordinate [24], and Terra's position during an observation is determined by the Tracking Data Relay Satellite On-Board Navigation System (TONS) [25] with an accuracy better than 100 m [26]. Given these characteristics, the ASTER images are suitable for this study as a raw pushbroom images which are not projected onto a map coordinate.…”