Design challenges of the thematic mapper
Abstract
The paper discusses the Thematic Mapper (TM), a multispectral earth resources sensor that will be launched on the Landsat-D satellite. The TM will operate in a circular, near-polar orbit of 750-km altitude and will scan a swath of earth 185 km wide. One TM mirror is a moving scan mirror, active during the forward and reverse scans; the final design of this component incorporates a mirror which has the required linearity and is not influenced by structural vibration. Another TM component that presented a design difficulty was the optical metering structure which has to be thermally stable across the temperature range in the instrument's orbital environment and duty cycle.
- Publication:
-
IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing
- Pub Date:
- April 1980
- DOI:
- 10.1109/TGRS.1980.350267
- Bibcode:
- 1980ITGRS..18..146B
- Keywords:
-
- Multispectral Band Scanners;
- Remote Sensors;
- Satellite-Borne Instruments;
- Structural Design;
- Thematic Mappers (Landsat);
- Thematic Mapping;
- Commonality (Equipment);
- Computer Techniques;
- Eddy Currents;
- Landsat 4;
- Optical Measurement;
- Optical Properties;
- Thermal Stability