Land Calibration Satellite - Breadboard

The Land Imaging Community continues to demonstrate the value of improved sensor performance, with higher spatial resolution, temporal coverage, more spectral bands, and improved radiometry enabling broader science investigations and supporting increased societal benefits. The Community is pivoting toward increasing temporal coverage through data fusion from a constellation of sensors, including international and commercial assets – each with diverse strengths and weaknesses. However, integrating data from other, less capable sensors, has been more challenging, as the Community wrestles with instrument-induced data artifacts. The LandCalSat Breadboard (LCS-B) project demonstrates a path to space for LandCalSat (LCS): a mission that would provide the cross-calibration and validation capability required to knit together this future Land Imaging Constellation. LCS-B focuses on the key technical challenges to providing an on-orbit reference instrument – specifically, differences in spatial and spectral performance between disparate platforms, such as Sentinel-2, Planet, and Landsat-8. Characterization uncertainties in spatial and spectral performance have a large impact on radiometric cross-calibration. While the Land Imaging Community recognizes the impact in comparing spectral performance and the need to effectively subsample spectrally, the impact of varying spatial performance on cross-calibration is less well-understood and has a greater impact, posing a challenge to successful radiometric cross-calibration between sensors and direct comparison to ground-based vicarious calibration sites. The LCS-B has a three year period of performance and would raise the TRL from 3 to 5. The primary goals of the spaceborne LCS are to provide a single sensor that has appropriate resolution both spatially and spectrally and bridges the spatial resolution gap between low resolution, radiometrically calibrated observations designed for climate applications and higher-resolution Land Imaging sensors. LCS leverages Ball Aerospace's expertise in design and characterization of Land Imaging sensors, high spatial resolution imagers, and imaging spectroscopy.

Accelerate mission development, reduce risks and costs for future Sustainable Land Imaging missions

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