S-NPP VIIRS on-orbit Band to Band Registration Estimation using the Moon

Abstract:

The Soumi National Polar-orbit Partnership (S-NPP) was successfully launched and has been operational since October 28, 2011, which carries the Visible Infrared Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) with among other instruments. Since VIIRS does not include on-board spatial calibrator such as Spectroradiometric Calibration Assembly (SRCA) on the predecessor sensor called MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), the on-orbit estimation of the spatial parameters needs to be measured independently. As a well-known radiometric target, the moon is utilized to estimate Band-to-Band (BBR) results as a part of spatial quality factors using the lifetime scheduled lunar collections. The reference band of the BBR is chosen to be the VIIRS band of Imaging band 1 (I1), because of its high signal-to-noise ratio, and high spatial sampling frequency compared to other moderate (M) bands. In this study, the conventional BBR calculation applied MODIS called weighted sum method is applied providing along-track and along-scan direction results. The BBR differences based on the reference band I1 results are very stable over the 3 years of VIIRS operation. The along-scan direction BBR results are mostly within ± 0.5 nominal Ground Sampling Distance (GSD) and the along-track direction BBR values are mostly between + 0.1 and -0.4 GSD. The final BBR results are available publically at the National Oceanic Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) Integrated Calibration Validation System (ICVS) webpage.