ASTER (Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer) Science Team Meeting
- Andrew Morrison (andy@lithos.jpl.nasa.gov), Jet Propulsion Laboratory
The 11th ASTER Science Team meeting was held June 10-14, 1996, in Pasadena, California. The nearly 90 attendees represented Japanese and U.S. government, academia, and industry. The U.K. and Australia were also represented at the meeting. The Japanese contingent has grown by nearly a factor of three since the last meeting in the U.S. due to the growth of the Ground Data System (GDS) development activity in Japan.
A special session of the meeting was held Monday afternoon to address ASTER Instrument pointing stability. Meeting topics included pointing status summary, TDRSS Onboard Navigation System (TONS) performance, pointing (attitude stability) performance, and instrument boresight stability. H. Kieffer summarized the results of the meeting saying that: 1) the problems are much smaller than they appeared one year ago, 2) platform stability will not be a problem, and 3) the requirements for inter-telescope registration can be easily met.
The Tuesday morning Plenary Session was opened by A. Kahle, U.S. ASTER Science Team Leader. She introduced M. Pniel, who has succeeded D. Nichols as ASTER Science Project Manager. She also reviewed the status of the Federation of EOSDIS, the Railroad Valley Experiment, several recent meetings, and the status of the ASTER/MODIS simulator (MASTER). She listed four topics that she hoped would receive particular attention during the meeting. They were:
D. Williams, Landsat-7 Project Scientist, presented a Project update. He announced the names of the newly selected Science Team Leader and Science Team members (two of whom, K. Thome and F. Palluconi, were present at the ASTER meeting). He reported that in conjunction with Piers Sellers, he has arranged EOS funding for Landsat-7 Level-1 product processing at a level of approximately 100 products per day. He also announced that an MOU was completed with the EOS AM Project to fly AM-1 and Landsat-7 in synchronized flight. Landsat's new home page is http://geo.arc. nasa.gov/esd/esdstaff/landsat/landsat.html.
G. Geller summarized the QA-related events since the last meeting. He said that, from his perspective, the main objective of this meeting was to get a final ap-proval of the QA Plan by the entire ASTER Science Team so that it can be submitted for review this summer by GSFC. He also reviewed the purpose and major decisions reached at the U.S. QA Workshop. He then introduced the QA plane concepts and asked the Working Groups (WGs) to discuss and refine first and second QA plane concepts as they related to each WG's products.
M. Pniel presented an update of the Product Generating System (PGS) status since the last meeting. He reviewed the product list, the toolkit status, and the software development schedule. He also discussed beta version characteristics, reviewed the milestones that had been tracked during I&T, and presented the approach for Version 1.
H. Watanabe presented the ASTER Ground Data system (GDS) Development Status. He presented the major milestones achieved in the last year and talked about the major issues and decisions reached. There will be a single XAR server and access to it may be used to satisfy the U.S. request for query capability. He noted that there is a need at this meeting for the Operations & Mission Planning Working Group (OMPWG) to address the issue of generalized query of the XAR database. He reported that the GDS had received the beta versions of the atmospheric correction, de-correlation stretch, etc., software. The GDS has decided to use the U.S. atmospheric correction algorithm for a Standard Data Product. They are interested to know whether and how much MODIS/MISR data are needed, and whether MODIS/MISR data will always be available for atmospheric correction.
T. Kawakami summarized the OMPWG ad hoc meeting that was held in Tokyo in March. The main topics of the meeting included:
H. Fujisada presented an ASTER Level-1 Algorithm and software development status update. His presentation included:
Y. Yamaguchi presented the basic policies, Project flow, and Project schedule for the upcoming Japanese Announcement of Opportunity (AO) for investigators who wish to be authorized to submit ASTER DARs. Although authorization by NASA and the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) has not been made yet, the current ideas proposed by his presentations were:
Y. Yamaguchi presented an update of the Global Data Set Prioritization Map plan and schedule. A color copy of Version 1 of the map was distributed that showed areas of priority A (33.3%), B (55.3%), and C (11.4%). This version is a compilation of 9 layers submitted by 4 Working Groups. The statistics of the layer maps were presented.
I. Sato reported on the activities of the Higher-Level Data Products Working Group (HLDPWG). He said that, from his perspective, a key objective of this meeting is to achieve a final reconciliation of the two versions of the Higher-Level Data Product Specification to produce a single specification. He also said that QA is still the main area requiring definition-each WG was expected to be developing its own QA parameters and would meet at this meeting to finalize the definitions. He added that browse for higher-level data products is a major topic for the HLDPWG to address. He also presented a diagram showing a proposed process for generating the higher-level browse products in Japan.
The ASTER Instrument Project status was reported by M. Kudoh of Japan Resources Observation Systems Organization (JAROS). He said that the MOU, now called the Implementing Arrangement between MITI and NASA, is in its last phase. Regarding the instrument, he said that the ASTER subsystems are now in the final test phase of the Proto Flight Modules (PFM) -all of the subsystems have to be reviewed in the Post Qualification Review (PQR). He listed the steps and the schedule of the PQR. The TIR scanner PFM was delivered to the TIR subsystem in April 1996 and the Master Power Subsystem (MPS) PFM was delivered May 1996. The ASTER system entered the I&T phase. He also listed the remaining problem areas including:
The first Plenary Session was followed by a GDS/PGS meeting held at the Hilton and by demonstrations at JPL of the alpha version of the Scheduler (GDS), the alpha version of the IST (GDS), and the DAR entry tool (D. Noss).
A. Gillespie reported that the Temperature-Emissivity (T-E) Separation Working Group (TEWG) had resolved a great many issues. Most importantly, he said, the Temperature/Emissivity Separation (TES) algorithm seems to be functioning and robust, and delivering good products. He noted that the T-E validation plan will require the pooling of resources between the U.S. and Japanese and between ASTER and MODIS.
J. Salisbury, Spectral Library Committee, reported on the acquisition of a database of spectra of man-made materials that is available at their FTP site. He also reported on the status of on-going Spectral Library Committee activities. Among them, that round-robin samples are circulating for lab measurements.
G. Geller said that the final version of the Level-1 Product Specification will be delivered to the GDS in August. He said that the Level-1 Working Group is proposing a policy for replacement of bad pixels by interpolation during 1B processing by a method TBD. He offered to any takers a tape copy of Version 1 of the Level-1 software that comes with a manual (in Japanese).
M. Pniel reviewed the main topics covered in the Operations & Mission Planning Working Group (OMPWG) meeting. These included:
F. Palluconi presented the agenda and a summary of the Atmospheric Correction Working Group meeting. He reported on the schedule for ATBD reviews (revised ATBDs due August 16 at GSFC, followed by a second mail review, followed by a third verbal presentation in December), noted that a CERES request for 8000 ASTER scenes has been received, said that a common QA data plane agreement was reached, and reported that a joint (ASTER/MODIS/MISR) atmospheric campaign in 1997 received favorable consideration. In the meeting, P. Minnett (MODIS) discussed possible coordination between ASTER, MODIS, and shipboard SST measurements.
J. Schieldge reported that the Japanese Ecosystem WG has submitted some prioritized targets to the Global Map planning activity and has more in preparation. The U.S. Team has yet to submit their requests. He said that the WG will use Honda's new Ecosystem WG information bulletin board to improve intra-group communications.
L. Rowan summarized the highlights of the Geology WG meeting. The topics covered included:
T. Kawakami invited the attendees to the next ASTER Science Team meeting scheduled to be held December 2-6, 1996, at the Paciphico Yokohama in Yokohama, Japan. An splinter meeting is scheduled for October 7-9, 1996.
The meeting was closed by H. Tsu who called this a significant and productive meeting in which many issues were resolved in off-line splinter meetings as well as in the scheduled on-line meetings.
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