Search NASA⌕ Search

Engineering topics

Jeffrey McIntire

Publications and source records attributed to Jeffrey McIntire.

JPSS-2 VIIRS Version 1 spectral characterization and performance assessment

The JPSS-2 VIIRS instrument is set to be the third VIIRS instrument when it launches in 2022 following S-NPP and NOAA-20 VIIRS which launched in October 2011and November 2017, respectively. To date JPSS-2 VIIRS has undergone extensive pre-launch testing at the instrument system level to determine the radiometric, spatial, and spectral performance. Spectral testing was conducted by the instrument vendor, Raytheon Corporation, at their test facility in mid-to-late 2017 with a test configuration that utilized a double monochrometer with illumination provided by tungsten lamp and ceramic glow bar to cover the full spectral range. The purpose of these measurements was to measure the relative spectral response curve and assess the spectral characteristics necessary to determine compliance with the sensor design requirements. In addition to Raytheon team, the spectral measurements were analyzed by an independent government team with members from NASA, the University of Wisconsin, and Aerospace Corporation. Two RSR curves were released by the government team from this data set: a version 0 release which was the verified RSR as calculated by Raytheon, and version 1 which was the RSR assessment from the government team. The results discussed here are those of the government team (version 1) including the independent assessment of sensor compliance and a comparison of the JPSS-2 VIIRS spectral characteristics with the two previous VIIRS instruments. The version 1 RSR was publicly released to the science community in the fall of 2018, and remains available for their use.

VIIRS↗

PACE OCI Straylight and Crosstalk Evaluation using Moon

The Ocean Color Instrument (OCI) onboard NASA’s Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission has performed three monthly lunar calibrations. The moon is an extended source over a large dark background, making it an ideal target for evaluating OCI’s straylight and crosstalk performance. The lunar data analysis showed the straylight and crosstalk to be lower than the prelaunch measurements, especially in the along-track direction, where very little straylight is detected. Based on lunar data, the prelaunch measured crosstalk coefficients were reduced, and a crosstalk correction was tested on both lunar and solar calibration data. Applying the revised crosstalk correction, the crosstalk contaminations are significantly reduced to under 0.1% at 2-3 pixels away from the lunar boundary for bands above 350 nm. Below 350 nm, the crosstalk correction residuals gradually increase due to a lack of high-quality prelaunch measurements. Lastly, applying the crosstalk correction changes the calibrated radiance for all science data. This is due to the different spectral shapes between the solar diffuser and the observed scenes. For the moon, the crosstalk correction has an impact of ~0.4% on the overall calibrated radiance for the 400 – 600 nm bands and up to 20% impact on the UV bands.

Shihyan Lee↗