The Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) on Landsat 8: Design Overview and Pre-Launch Characterization

Reuter, Dennis C.; Richardson, Cathleen M.; Pellerano, F.; Irons, James R.; Allen, Richard G.; Anderson, Martha C.; Jhabvala, M.; Lunsford, Allen; Montanaro, Matthew; Smith, Ramsey L.; Tesfaye, Zelalem; Thome, Kurtis J.

doi:10.3390/rs70101135

Cited by 94 publications

(57 citation statements)

References 15 publications

(25 reference statements)

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“…The SCAs overlap in the across-track direction by 28 pixels. The temperature of the focal plane is controlled by the cryocooler to ~40 K and maintained to within ±0.01 K [9]. The spectral interference filters lay on top of the SCAs, covering about 30 rows of the 512-row chip.…”

Section: The Tirs Instrumentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The ETM+ thermal band is calibrated to within 0.48 K and the Landsat-5 TM thermal band to within 0.53 K (at 300 K). TIRS was rigorously characterized and calibrated pre-launch [9] and an on-board calibration system allows for continuous characterization now that it's on-orbit [10]. This paper addresses the methods used to validate the on-orbit calibration using ground targets and other satellites, to confirm that the calibration is consistent with the Landsat historical record.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Landsat-8 Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) Vicarious Radiometric Calibration

et al. 2014

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Launched in February 2013, the Landsat-8 carries on-board the Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS), a two-band thermal pushbroom imager, to maintain the thermal imaging capability of the Landsat program. The TIRS bands are centered at roughly 10.9 and 12 μm (Bands 10 and 11 respectively). They have 100 m spatial resolution and image coincidently with the Operational Land Imager (OLI), also on-board Landsat-8. The TIRS instrument has an internal calibration system consisting of a variable temperature blackbody and a special viewport with which it can see deep space; a two point calibration can be performed twice an orbit. Immediately after launch, a rigorous vicarious calibration program was started to validate the absolute calibration of the system. The two vicarious calibration teams, NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), both make use of buoys deployed on large water bodies as the primary monitoring technique. RIT took advantage of cross-calibration opportunity soon after launch when Landsat-8 and Landsat-7 were imaging the same targets within a few minutes of each other to perform a validation of the absolute calibration. Terra MODIS is also being used for regular monitoring OPEN ACCESSRemote Sens. 2014, 6 11608 of the TIRS absolute calibration. The buoy initial results showed a large error in both bands, 0.29 and 0.51 W/m 2 ·sr·μm or −2.1 K and −4.4 K at 300 K in Band 10 and 11 respectively, where TIRS data was too hot. A calibration update was recommended for both bands to correct for a bias error and was implemented on 3 February 2014 in the USGS/EROS processing system, but the residual variability is still larger than desired for both bands (0.12 and 0.2 W/m 2 ·sr·μm or 0.87 and 1.67 K at 300 K). Additional work has uncovered the source of the calibration error: out-of-field stray light. While analysis continues to characterize the stray light contribution, the vicarious calibration work proceeds. The additional data have not changed the statistical assessment but indicate that the correction (particularly in band 11) is probably only valid for a subset of data. While the stray light effect is small enough in Band 10 to make the data useful across a wide array of applications, the effect in Band 11 is larger and the vicarious results suggest that Band 11 data should not be used where absolute calibration is required.

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Section: The Tirs Instrumentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Landsat-8 Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) Vicarious Radiometric Calibration

et al. 2014

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“…Unlike the TMs, OLI does not include a thermal band. The Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) covers the thermal region and has two bands [2]. TIRS characteristics are not covered in this paper.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Spectral Response of the Landsat-8 Operational Land Imager

Barsi

Lee²,

Kvaran³

et al. 2014

Remote Sensing

313

156

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This paper discusses the pre-launch spectral characterization of the Operational Land Imager (OLI) at the component, assembly and instrument levels and relates results of those measurements to artifacts observed in the on-orbit imagery. It concludes that the types of artifacts observed and their magnitudes are consistent with the results of the pre-launch characterizations. The OLI in-band response was characterized both at the integrated instrument level for a sampling of detectors and by an analytical stack-up of component measurements. The out-of-band response was characterized using a combination of Focal Plane Module (FPM) level measurements and optical component level measurements due to better sensitivity. One of the challenges of a pushbroom design is to match the spectral responses for all detectors so that images can be flat-fielded regardless of the spectral nature of the targets in the imagery. Spectral variability can induce striping (detector-to-detector variation), banding (FPM-to-FPM variation) and other artifacts in the final data products. Analyses of the measured spectral response showed that the maximum discontinuity between FPMs due to spectral filter differences is 0.35% for selected targets for all bands except for Cirrus, where there is almost no signal. The average discontinuity between FPMs is 0.12% for the same targets. These results were expected and are in accordance with the OLI requirements. Pre-launch testing identified OPEN ACCESSRemote Sens. 2014, 6 10233 low levels (within requirements) of spectral crosstalk amongst the three HgCdTe (Cirrus, SWIR1 and SWIR2) bands of the OLI and on-orbit data confirms this crosstalk in the imagery. Further post-launch analyses and simulations revealed that the strongest crosstalk effect is from the SWIR1 band to the Cirrus band; about 0.2% of SWIR1 signal leaks into the Cirrus. Though the total crosstalk signal is only a few counts, it is evident in some scenes when the in-band cirrus signal is very weak. In moist cirrus-free atmospheres and over typical land surfaces, at least 30% of the cirrus signal was due to the SWIR1 band. In the SWIR1 and SWIR2 bands, crosstalk accounts for no more than 0.15% of the total signal.

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“…The platform contains two instruments: the Operational Land Imager (OLI), and the Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS), which complement one another in spectral coverage. OLI is a visible and near infrared (VNIR) multispectral sensor that operates from 400-2500 nm, and TIRS is a two-band thermal sensor that operates from 10.6-12.5 μm [1,2]. The in-flight absolute radiometric calibration of OLI is the focus of this work.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Ground-Based Absolute Radiometric Calibration of Landsat 8 OLI

et al. 2015

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This paper presents the vicarious calibration results of Landsat 8 OLI that were obtained using the reflectance-based approach at test sites in Nevada, California, Arizona, and South Dakota, USA. Additional data were obtained using the Radiometric Calibration Test Site, which is a suite of instruments located at Railroad Valley, Nevada, USA. The results for the top-of-atmosphere spectral radiance show an average difference of −2.7, −0.8, 1.5, 2.0, 0.0, 3.6, 5.8, and 0.7% in OLI bands 1-8 as compared to an average of all of the ground-based measurements. The top-of-atmosphere spectral reflectance shows an average difference of 1.6, 1.3, 2.0, 1.9, 0.9, 2.1, 3.1, and 2.1% from the ground-based measurements. Except for OLI band 7, the spectral radiance results are generally within ±5% of the design specifications, and the reflectance results are generally within ±3% of the design specifications. The results from the data collected during the tandem Landsat 7 and 8 flight in March 2013 indicate that ETM+ and OLI agree to each other to within ±2% in similar bands in top-of-atmosphere spectral radiance, and to within ±4% in top-of-atmosphere spectral reflectance. OPEN ACCESSRemote Sens. 2015, 7 601

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The Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) on Landsat 8: Design Overview and Pre-Launch Characterization

Cited by 94 publications

References 15 publications

Landsat-8 Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) Vicarious Radiometric Calibration

Landsat-8 Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) Vicarious Radiometric Calibration

The Spectral Response of the Landsat-8 Operational Land Imager

The Ground-Based Absolute Radiometric Calibration of Landsat 8 OLI

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