ECOSTRESS: current sensor performance and outlook (Conference Presentation)

The ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) measures the emissivity and land surface temperature (LST) of plants from the space station. This information is used to generate products such as evapotranspiration (ET) over an effective diurnal cycle to better understand how much water plants need and how they respond to stresses (i.e. lack of water, sun, nutrients). The imaging radiometer on board the ECOSTRESS payload provides five thermal infrared (TIR) spectral bands with approximately 70m pixels and a nearly 400km swath. It incorporates many new technologies such as a high-speed Mercury Cadmium Telluride (MCT) focal plane array (FPA), black silicon calibration targets, and a thermal suppression filter allowing shortwave infrared (SWIR) bandpass. This radiometer has two on-board blackbodies to maintain calibration every sweep of the scan mirror (1.29s). A series of calibration targets (Lake Tahoe and the Salton Sea) have been utilized to verify the top of atmosphere radiometric integrity of the science data.