Abstract
The Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) is an imaging sensor with high spatial resolution and extensive spectral coverage from visible to thermal infrared region, which is scheduled to be launched in morning sun-synchronous Earth orbit on the platform of NASA’s Earth Observing System (EOS-AM) in 1998. The instrument will have three bands in the visible and near infrared with 15-m spatial resolution, six bands in the short-wave infrared with 30-m spatial resolution and five bands in the thermal infrared with 90-m spatial resolution. An additional band in the near infrared with 15-m spatial resolution will provide stereo viewing capability combined with the nadir viewing band. The ASTER instrument is being built based on the scientific requirements of the ASTER Science Team. This team is an international team of Japanese and American scientists, who are responsible for the algorithm development of the standard data products and the higher science data products. The algorithm developments and future science potential evaluation are mainly promoted by the ASTER simulation data generated from airborne experiments. Some examples of the airborne experiments in thermal infrared region are shown here to demonstrate the temperature and surface compositional mapping capabilities.
