Landsat Data Continuity Mission operational land imager and thermal infrared sensor performance

Abstract

The Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) will have two pushbroom Earth-imaging sensors: the Operational Land Imager (OLI) and the Thermal InfraRed Sensor (TIRS). The OLI has the reflective 30-meter and panchromatic 15-meter ETM+ bands plus additional 30-meter bands at 443 nm and 1375 nm. The TIRS has two 100-meter bands that spectrally split the ETM+ thermal band. OLI has completed performance testing and is scheduled for a late summer 2011 delivery to the spacecraft. OLI radiometric performance has shown that polarization sensitivity is 1-2%; Signal-to-Noise Ratios at signal levels about 5-10% of full scale are between 6-12 times better than ETM+, e.g., 250 versus 30; radiometric stability over 16 days is better than 0.5% (2-sigma); coherent noise is not visible; detector operability is 100% (no dead or inoperable detectors), absolute radiance calibration uncertainty is ~4%, reflectance calibration uncertainty is ~2.5% and detector-to-detector radiometric uniformity is generally better than 0.5%. TIRS completed initial performance testing in March 2011 and in August 2011 will be entering its primary thermal vacuum performance testing with the integrated instrument. At this point indications are that the TIRS instrument will have noise levels roughly ¼ of the ETM+ bands and detector-to-detector radiometric uniformity of better than 0.5%.