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Special Issue "Current and Future Earth Observing Sensor Systems aboard the International Space Station (ISS)"

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A special issue of Remote Sensing (ISSN 2072-4292). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Remote Sensing".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 November 2023) | Viewed by 10883

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Hirokazu Yamamoto

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Guest Editor

National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Annex 5th Floor, AIST Tokyo Waterfront, 2-4-7 Aomi, Koto-ku, Tokyo 135-0064, Japan
Interests: calibration and validation of optical remote sensing systems; atmospheric correction; validating retrieved surface reflectance
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Kurtis Thome

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA
Interests: radiometric calibration with emphasis on vicarious calibrations; atmospheric radiative transfer with emphasis on scattering dominated cases; atmospheric correction and surface reflectance retrievals

Dr. Glynn Hulley

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, USA
Interests: thermal infrared spectroscopy; land surface temperature and emissivity; ECOSTRESS; improving our understanding of Earth surface properties; urban climate; hydrological processes

Dr. Hao Tang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
Interests: LiDAR; 3D structure; ecosystem; carbon; GEDI; ICESat-2
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Dr. Uta Heiden

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Guest Editor

German Aerospace Center (DLR), Remote Sensing Technology Institute, Photogrammetry and Image Analysis, Oberpfaffenhofen, 82234 Weßling, Germany
Interests: imaging spectroscopy with a focus on urban surface materials; spaceborne imaging spectroscopy missions; EnMAP; DESIS; earth observation for soil information; applied spectroscopy
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The International Space Station (ISS) is a unique platform with a human crew, which can contribute to Earth observations. Recently-launched sensors for Earth observation include ECOSTRESS, GEDI, OCO-3, DESIS, and HISUI that have all begun operations from ISS after 2018 with each sensor already providing useful information to understand planet Earth.

The Ecosystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) can obtain brightness temperature of vegetation for understanding evapotranspiration dynamics. The Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) instrument can observe Earth’s 3D vegetation structure using a high-resolution laser remote sensing system. The Orbiting Carbon Observatory-3 (OCO-3) sensor measures global carbon dioxide and solar-induced fluorescence (SIF) from space. The Hyperspectral Imager Suite (HISUI) developed by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry and the German Space Agency (DLR) Earth Sensing Imaging Spectrometer (DESIS) are spaceborne hyperspectral Earth imaging systems. A future sensor, The Climate Absolute Radiance and Refractivity Observatory Pathfinder (CPF), will be demonstrating the capability to measure energy from reflected sunlight from Earth with higher accuracy than other Earth observation satellite sensors. Another future ISS sensor, the Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT), will measure arid land dust source regions of the Earth.

The above examples of current and future Earth observing sensor systems on the ISS have huge potential for research on the interactions among the geosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere because their sensors can measure the Earth surface simultaneously. Data sharing obtained by Earth observing sensors onboard ISS can promote international collaboration under the international partnership.

This Special Issue invites manuscripts on research updates on the above instruments as well as other planned and previously-operated Earth observation sensors onboard the ISS. Topics can include but are not limited to descriptions of sensor calibration, validation of higher-level products, results from using multiple ISS sensors, and challenges and benefits of the ISS platform for Earth observation measurements.

Dr. Hirokazu Yamamoto
Dr. Kurtis Thome
Dr. Glynn Hulley
Dr. Hao Tang
Dr. Uta Heiden
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Remote Sensing is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

ISS
Calibration
Validation
Temperature
Evapotranspiration
Vegetation structure
Carbon dioxide
Solar-induced fluorescence
Hyperspectral imaging
Future instruments onboard ISS

Published Papers (4 papers)

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17 pages, 3759 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Global Intercomparison of Hyper-Resolution ECOSTRESS Coastal Sea Surface Temperature Measurements from the Space Station with VIIRS-N20

Nicolas Weidberg

David S. Wethey

and

Sarah A. Woodin

Remote Sens. 2021, 13(24), 5021; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13245021 - 10 Dec 2021

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 1911

Abstract

The ECOSTRESS multi-channel thermal radiometer on the Space Station has an unprecedented spatial resolution of 70 m and a return time of hours to 5 days. It resolves details of oceanographic features not detectable in imagery from MODIS or VIIRS, and has open-ocean coverage, unlike Landsat. We calibrated two years of ECOSTRESS sea surface temperature observations with L2 data from VIIRS-N20 (2019–2020) worldwide but especially focused on important upwelling systems currently undergoing climate change forcing. Unlike operational SST products from VIIRS-N20, the ECOSTRESS surface temperature algorithm does not use a regression approach to determine temperature, but solves a set of simultaneous equations based on first principles for both surface temperature and emissivity. We compared ECOSTRESS ocean temperatures to well-calibrated clear sky satellite measurements from VIIRS-N20. Data comparisons were constrained to those within 90 min of one another using co-located clear sky VIIRS and ECOSTRESS pixels. ECOSTRESS ocean temperatures have a consistent 1.01 °C negative bias relative to VIIRS-N20, although deviation in brightness temperatures within the 10.49 and 12.01 µm bands were much smaller. As an alternative, we compared the performance of NOAA, NASA, and U.S. Navy operational split-window SST regression algorithms taking into consideration the statistical limitations imposed by intrinsic SST spatial autocorrelation and applying corrections on brightness temperatures. We conclude that standard bias-correction methods using already validated and well-known algorithms can be applied to ECOSTRESS SST data, yielding highly accurate products of ultra-high spatial resolution for studies of biological and physical oceanography in a time when these are needed to properly evaluate regional and even local impacts of climate change. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Current and Future Earth Observing Sensor Systems aboard the International Space Station (ISS))

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28 pages, 17307 KiB

Open AccessEditor’s ChoiceArticle

Compact Thermal Imager (CTI) for Atmospheric Remote Sensing

and

Remote Sens. 2021, 13(22), 4578; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13224578 - 14 Nov 2021

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2390

Abstract

The demonstration of a newly developed compact thermal imager (CTI) on the International Space Station (ISS) has provided not only a technology advancement but a rich high-resolution dataset on global clouds, atmospheric and land emissions. This study showed that the free-running CTI instrument could be calibrated to produce scientifically useful radiance imagery of the atmosphere, clouds, and surfaces with a vertical resolution of ~460 m at limb and a horizontal resolution of ~80 m at nadir. The new detector demonstrated an excellent sensitivity to detect the weak limb radiance perturbations modulated by small-scale atmospheric gravity waves. The CTI’s high-resolution imaging was used to infer vertical cloud temperature profiles from a side-viewing geometry. For nadir imaging, the combined high-resolution and high-sensitivity capabilities allowed the CTI to better separate cloud and surface emissions, including those in the planetary boundary layer (PBL) that had small contrast against the background surface. Finally, based on the ISS’s orbit, the stable detector performance and robust calibration algorithm produced valuable diurnal observations of cloud and surface emissions with respect to solar local time during May–October 2019, when the CTI had nearly continuous operation. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Current and Future Earth Observing Sensor Systems aboard the International Space Station (ISS))

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12 pages, 2571 KiB

Open AccessArticle

ECOSTRESS and CIMIS: A Comparison of Potential and Reference Evapotranspiration in Riverside County, California

and

Remote Sens. 2020, 12(24), 4126; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12244126 - 17 Dec 2020

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 3494

Abstract

The ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) provides remotely-sensed estimates of evapotranspiration at 70 m spatial resolution every 1–5 days, sampling across the diurnal cycle. This study, in partnership with an operational water management organization, the Eastern Municipal Water District (EMWD) in Southern California, was conducted to evaluate estimates of evapotranspiration under ideal conditions where water is not limited. EMWD regularly uses a ground-based network of reference evapotranspiration (ET_o) from the California Irrigation Management Information System (CIMIS); yet, there are gaps in spatial coverage and questions of spatial representativeness and consistency. Space-based potential evapotranspiration (PET) estimates, such as those from ECOSTRESS, provide consistent spatial coverage. We compared ECOSTRESS ET_o (estimated from PET) to CIMIS ET_o at five CIMIS sites in Riverside County, California from July 2018–June 2020. We found strong correlations between CIMIS ET_o and ECOSTRESS ET_o across all five sites (R² = 0.89, root mean square error (RMSE) = 0.11 mm hr⁻¹). Both CIMIS and ECOSTRESS ET_o captured similar seasonal patterns through the study period as well as diurnal variability. There were site-specific differences in the relationship between ECOSTRESS AND CIMIS, in part due to spatial heterogeneity around the station site. Consequently, careful examination of landscapes surrounding CIMIS sites must be considered in future comparisons. These results indicate that ECOSTRESS successfully retrieves PET that is comparable to ground-based reference ET, highlighting the potential for providing observation-driven guidance for irrigation management across spatial scales. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Current and Future Earth Observing Sensor Systems aboard the International Space Station (ISS))

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13 pages, 4090 KiB

Open AccessTechnical Note

Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment (SAGE) from SAGE III on the ISS to a Free Flying SAGE IV Cubesat

John P. Leckey

Robert Damadeo

and

Charles A. Hill

Remote Sens. 2021, 13(22), 4664; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13224664 - 19 Nov 2021

Viewed by 1367

Abstract

The Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment III (SAGE III) on the International Space Station (ISS) is widely accepted as a stable source for high-quality stratospheric ozone, aerosol, and water vapor measurements since it was installed on the ISS in 2017. The ISS is a unique platform that provides access for hosted payloads while furnishing infrastructure for power, uplink, downlink, etc. for instrument operations. The opportunities, risks, and challenges from operating on the ISS are described in addition to comprehensive lessons learned. In addition, SAGE IV is presented as an option for the future of the SAGE lineage where the lessons learned from SAGE III and technological advances have enabled the instrument to fit into a 6U CubeSat yielding a significantly smaller and cheaper form-factor to preserve the continuity of critical atmospheric measurements. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Current and Future Earth Observing Sensor Systems aboard the International Space Station (ISS))

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