MODIS Characterization Support Team

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

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The MODIS on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image around 1:40 p.m. EDT on August 23 of Tropical Storm Isaac when hovered over the Caribbean Sea

On November 23, 2013 violent eruptions shook Japan’s Sakura-jima volcano...

On December 2, 2013 the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (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 August 15, 2012, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this true-color image of the iceberg well into Nares Strait.

On August 13, 2012, numerous fires blazed across four states, burning in vegetation California, Idaho, Nevada, and Oregon.

MODIS on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this natural-color image in late July 2012 of dust plumes in Argentina’s Laguna Mar Chiquita

MODIS aboard the Aqua satellite captured this true-color image on July 28, 2012 of the Greenland Sea as the summer melt progresses.

MODIS aboard NASA’s Terra satellite captured this true-color image on July 27 of blue colored waters off Newfoundland.

Latest News

Terra Completes Lunar Deep Space Maneuver

Sep

29

On August 5, 2017, the Terra spacecraft completed a deep space pitch maneuver. During this maneuver, the moon was visible through the MODIS earth-view port. Details are included below. MODIS was in Day Collection rate during the maneuver, instead of nominal Night Collection. MODIS telemetry and gain parameters stabilized by 2017/218 14:20 (GMT).

Start: 2017/217 23:15:45
Moon Center: 2017/217 23:29:54
End: 2017/217 23:51:39

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Terra Data Outage - SFE Anomaly

Apr

24

Terra MODIS experienced a data corruption issue stemming from the Science Formatter Equipment (SFE) Assembly. Terra FOT cycled the formatter and MODIS science data acquisition resumed as expected. Data is unavailable for day 2017/114 (04/25/2017) from 03:44:03 - 19:44:58. Similar anomalies have occurred previously.
Link to post of previous incident: https://mcst.gsfc.nasa.gov/news/terra-science-formatter-equipment-sfe-an...

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Implementation of Electronic Crosstalk Correction to Terra PV LWIR Bands in Collection 6.1

Mar

29

In support of the upcoming Collection 6.1 reprocess, MCST applied a correction for the electronic crosstalk (Xtalk) contamination in the Terra MODIS photovoltaic (PV) long-wave infrared (LWIR) bands 27-30. Using scheduled lunar observations, the correction coefficients are derived and applied to the on-board calibrator (OBC) data and Earth-view (EV) data to correct the L1B calibrated radiance for bands 27-30. This results in a significant reduction in the image striping and radiometric biases in the L1B data. A more detailed summary of this implementation is attached below.

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End of Collection 5 Processing

Dec

21

MODIS Collection 5 data products will no longer be produced after the end of March 2017. Collection 6 data products were introduced in 2012 and are available for the entire mission record for both Terra and Aqua MODIS.
For information on Collection 6 improvements over Collection 5, see https://mcst.gsfc.nasa.gov/content/collection-6-information
For information on MODIS data products, see https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/

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MCST receives NASA Group Achivement Award

Sep

20

Congratulations to the members of the MODIS Characterization Support Team on receiving the 2015 NASA Group Achievement Award "for 20 years of expert and dedicated characterization of MODIS instruments on Terra and Aqua leading to unprecedented achievement in understanding Earth processes."

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Pages

MODIS Characterization Support Team

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).

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Calibration

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.

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L1B

Current L1B LUTs: Terra: Version 5.0.48.27 Aqua: Version 5.0.43.25

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