Entry: MISR - showing version 3
URI: https://terra-vocabulary.org/ncl/FAIR-Incubator/earthsciencesensors/c_eb78459c
To accomplish its scientific objectives, the MISR instrument measures Earth's brightness in 4 spectral bands, at each of 9 look angles spread out in the forward and aft directions along the flight path. Spatial samples are acquired every 275 meters. Over a period of 7 minutes, a 360 km wide swath of Earth comes into view at all 9 angles. Special attention has been paid to providing highly accurate absolute and relative calibration, using on-board hardware consisting of deployable solar diffuser plates and several types of photodiodes. To complement the on-board calibration effort, a validation program of in situ measurements are being conducted, involving field instruments, one of which is the PARABOLA III, which automatically scans the sky and ground at many angles, and a multi-angle aircraft camera (AirMISR). Global coverage with MISR is acquired about once every 9 days at the equator; the nominal lifetime of the mission is 6 years. MISR was built for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and is one of five instruments launched into polar orbit aboard NASA's Terra spacecraft in August 1999. The spacecraft flys in a sun-synchronous orbit, designed so that it crosses the equator every 98 minutes, always at 10:30 a.m. local time, as Earth rotates below.