The landsat program has provided high fidelity thermal infrared image data of the earth for over 30 years and will continue to do so through landsat 9 and beyond. The calibration of the thermal band…

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) awarded a $124,328.92 grant to the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) to investigate technologies and techniques to support the calibration of current and future Landsat instruments and the verification of their higher-level products. The Landsat program has provided thermal infrared image data of the Earth for over 30 years, and as the program moves towards providing higher-level science products, the accuracy of the thermal band calibration becomes increasingly important. This effort aims to develop more robust calibration methods to maintain the radiometric integrity of the Landsat 8 and 9 dual-channel thermal bands, which use a push-broom design that requires new approaches compared to previous Landsat instruments. The grant is not associated with a set-aside and is intended to support research and development activities at RIT, a private university with a history of providing research and engineering services to federal agencies like NASA.

The landsat program has provided high fidelity thermal infrared image data of the earth for over 30 years and will continue to do so through landsat 9 and beyond. The calibration of the thermal band archive through landsat 7/ETM+ has been well established and documented so that users may be confident that their data is accurate to within 1 kelvin. The methodologies used to obtain this calibration accuracy are based on in-situ point measurements over water targets and were sufficient for the whisk-broom architectures of previous landsat instruments. More robust calibration methods are needed to maintain that radiometric integrity for the current and future thermal bands. Specifically, the push-broom design of the landsat 8 (and 9) dual-channel thermal bands requires new methods to assess and calibrate their thousands of detectors and characterize the improved dynamic range of the system. While an emphasis has been made to calibrate landsat s reflective bands through the use of ground campaigns and cross-calibration with other instruments (e.g., sentinel 2), a corresponding effort for its thermal bands has not been established. As the landsat program moves toward providing higher-level products for science users (i.e., level 2 products), the accuracy of the thermal band calibration will become increasingly important, especially over land targets. This effort proposes to investigate technologies and techniques that could potentially be used to support calibration of current and future landsat instruments and to support verification of their higher-level products.