NASA and U.S. Geological Survey Long-Term Archive for the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER)
Abstract
The Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) is a 14-channel optical imaging instrument on NASA's Terra spacecraft. ASTER is a joint project between Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry; and U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Since its launch in December, 1999, ASTER has acquired over 2.4 million multispectral images. The Level 0 data are sent to Japan by NASA, where they are processed to Level 1A (reconstructed, unprocessed instrument data with geometric and radiometric parameters attached). A copy of the L1A data is sent to the U.S. to the Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LPDAAC), operated for NASA by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) at the EROS Center. The joint US/Japan ASTER Science Team (AST) has provided algorithms to produce 14 Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3 products. The duplicate data distribution systems in Japan and the U.S. create these products 'on-demand' as users submit data requests. Only the L0 and L1A data are archived. After the termination of the mission, the USGS has the responsibility for creating, managing and distributing ASTER data products from a Long-Term Archive (LTA). In cooperation with the LPDAAC, the U.S. AST discussed various scenarios on how the LTA should operate. The two leading plans considered were: (1) duplicating the 'on-demand' system, fulfilling user requests as they arrived; this would require a high level of technical support for algorithm/software maintenance, user services to answer questions, hardware maintenance, and in general, was quite labor-intensive; (2) creating a static archive of all of the data products for every one of the L1A image granules; the LPDAAC would produce each of the 14 higher level data products from every L1A image currently archived. Users would order data products from this greatly expanded archive, with little human intervention. In both cases, complete documentation would be available to users, detailing the instrument characteristics, calibration history, algorithm fundamentals, etc. The LPDAAC estimated the cost of both options; with the cost estimates as one factor, the AST recommended to NASA and the USGS that the second option be adopted and implemented. The LPDAAC would be responsible for creating the entire suite of data products, and then, jointly with the USGS, developing the archive and distribution system built around the existing system. The AST would be responsible for ensuring: all of the processing algorithms were current with the most recent calibration values; adequate documentation was available to enable future users to understand how and why each data product was produced; documentation was available describing the ASTER instrument, its operation and characteristics. Negotiations are ongoing between NASA and the USGS on logistics for the handover, cost sharing, implementation resources needed, design of the data archiving and distribution system, and other issues.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2013
- Bibcode:
- 2013AGUFMIN11D..06A
- Keywords:
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- 1912 INFORMATICS Data management;
- preservation;
- rescue;
- 1640 GLOBAL CHANGE Remote sensing;
- 8419 VOLCANOLOGY Volcano monitoring;
- 1632 GLOBAL CHANGE Land cover change