Post-Launch Evaluations of ICESat-2'S On-Board Databases for Elevation Ranges and Relief
Abstract
NASA's ICESat-2 mission's Onboard Receiver Algorithms perform signal processing to distinguish surface echoes from the background noise, which allows the instrument to telemeter data from only a small vertical region about the signal, thereby limiting the daily data volume. The Algorithms use three onboard databases: a Digital Elevation Model (DEM), Digital Relief Maps (DRMs), and a Surface type Reference Map (SRM). The onboard databases were developed by the University of Texas-Center for Space Research (UT-CSR) (Leigh et al., 2015 and Urban et al., 2012), and independently verified by the ATLAS/ICESat-2 Science Receiver Algorithms team. The DEM provides minimum and maximum heights that limit the signal search region of the onboard algorithms. The signal location is found by histogramming the received event times and identifying the histogram bins with statistically significant counts. The onboard Digital Relief Maps (DRMs) are used to determine the vertical width of the telemetry band about the signal. During ICESat-2's commissioning phase, a series of verification checks have been implemented in high relief regions and selected locations globally. Their purpose is to ensure that the onboard databases are sufficiently accurate for the Science Receiver Algorithms to capture and telemeter down the science data for ground processing of ICESat-2 products. In this presentation, we concentrate on the results of these assessments, while McGarry et al. (also in this session) show the overall post-launch performance of the ATLAS Onboard Receiver Algorithms.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018AGUFM.C13C1168C
- Keywords:
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- 0726 Ice sheets;
- CRYOSPHEREDE: 0758 Remote sensing;
- CRYOSPHEREDE: 0762 Mass balance;
- CRYOSPHEREDE: 0776 Glaciology;
- CRYOSPHERE