NOAA-20 VIIRS on-orbit performance, data quality, and operational Cal/Val support

Abstract

The NOAA-20 (aka JPSS-1) satellite was successfully launched on November 18, 2017 as the first in the JPSS satellite series, and a follow-on to the Suomi NPP satellite mission. The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) onboard is a major Earth observing instrument with 22 spectral bands covering the 0.41um to 12.5 μm spectral range with spatial resolutions of 375 and 750 meters for the imaging and radiometric bands respectively. Since the VIIRS nadir and cryocooler doors were opened on December 13, 2017, and January 3, 2018 respectively, the instrument has been performing well and producing high quality data. The VIIRS Sensor Data Record (SDR) team has been supporting the postlaunch tests and extensive calibration/validation to ensure radiometric, spectral, and spatial performance. This paper provides a comprehensive summary of the studies in the postlaunch calibration/validation activities which enables the VIIRS SDR to reach beta, provisional, and calibrated/validation product maturity. The instrument performance is quantified through a large number of tests involving onboard, maneuvers, as well as vicarious calibration/validation. Several issues found in the ground processing are addressed through updating the calibration input parameters known as the lookup tables (LUTs). Instrument performance waivers including the non-standard aggregation mode for the Day/Night band (DNB) and related features are addressed. On-orbit anomalies and mitigations such as the longwave infrared band degradation and saturation in some bands are also discussed. With a local equator crossing time of ~1:30pm with ~50.5 min separation from Suomi NPP achieved since January 2, 2018, NOAA-20 VIIRS provides important Earth observations for generating more than 26 global environmental data records including clouds, sea surface temperature, polar wind, aerosol, vegetation fraction, ocean color, fire, snow and ice for weather, and other environmental applications.