MODIS Characterization Support Team
MODIS; aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite flew over Indonesia and captured this true-color image of spectacular clouds rising over the landscape.
The first storm of the Australian region's cyclone season threatened Australia’s Top End in late November 2013.
On November 23, 2013 violent eruptions shook Japan’s Sakura-jima volcano.
In late August 2012, Tropical Storm Isaac hovered over the Caribbean Sea, taking aim at populated
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this
In preparation for Collection 7. MCST has released the proposed algorithm changes for RSB, TEB, and L1B. (https://mcst.gsfc.nasa.gov/content/collection-7)
Due to the recent PWA failure on the EOS Terra spacecraft, MODIS has a reduced on-board memory allocation. Initial efforts reduced the data rate of day mode data (reflective solar band measurements) near the poles in a uniform manner. In an attempt to provide near-global two-day coverage, an alternating schedule was implemented starting November 8, 2020 (2020/313).
The Terra spacecraft experienced a PWA (printed-wire assembly) failure on Monday, October 5, 2020. The incident was noted by the Terra flight operations team at 15:21:12z. As part of the recovery, science recording was disabled on October 6 (2020/280) at 03:32:56z to handle the moving of the supersets and was re-enabled at 03:41:56z.
December 18, 2019 marked the 20 year anniversary of Terra launch. The MODIS instrument on-board the Terra spacecraft has well surpassed its design lifetime, but continues to acquire valuable science data. The images above are the MODIS first light (left) and the same region viewed earlier this year (right) show the continued consistency of the instrument over 20 years of successful operation.
The MODIS/VIIRS 2019 Science Team Meeting was held November 18-21, 2019 at the The Hotel in College Park, MD. As part of the Science Team Meeting, MCST and VCST hosted a Calibration Workshop. The presentations from the workshop are linked here. The talks given at the plenary meeting can be found at the here.
MCST is dedicated to the production of a high quality MODIS calibration product. This product is a precursor to every geophysical science product. MCST works for the Science Team Leader and is responsible for developing and maintaining the calibration product (L1B algorithm).
Collection 6 has been under development for a number of years. MCST, in consultation with representatives of the science disciplines, developed improvements to the calibration algorithms and methodolgies to handle known issues with the aging MODIS sensors. Summary talks of the proposed Collection 6 changes have been delivered at the MODIS science team meetings over the last few years.
Current L1B LUT Versions:
Terra C6: 6.1.26.40; Terra C6.1: 6.2.2.38; Aqua C6: 6.1.37.42; Aqua C6.1: 6.2.1.38