Lunar Calibration for ASTER VNIR and TIR with Observations of the Moon in 2003 and 2017

Abstract

The Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER), which is a multiband pushbroom sensor suite onboard Terra, has successfully provided valuable multiband images for approximately 20 years since Terra’s launch in 1999. Since the launch, sensitivity degradations in ASTER’s visible and near infrared (VNIR) and thermal infrared (TIR) bands have been monitored and corrected with various calibration methods. However, a unignorable discrepancy between different calibration methods has been confirmed for the VNIR bands that should be assessed with another reliable calibration method. In April 2003 and August 2017, ASTER observed the Moon (and deepspace) for conducting a radiometric calibration (called as lunar calibration), which can measure the temporal variation in the sensor sensitivity of the VNIR bands enough accurately (better than 1%). From the lunar calibration, 3–6% sensitivity degradations were confirmed in the VNIR bands from 2003 to 2017. Since the measured degradations from the other methods showed different trends from the lunar calibration, the lunar calibration suggests a further improvement is needed for the VNIR calibration. Sensitivity degradations in the TIR bands were also confirmed by monitoring the variation in the number of saturated pixels, which were qualitatively consistent with the onboard and vicarious calibrations.