PRELAUNCH CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MODERATE RESOLUTION IMAGING SPECTRORADIOMETER (MODIS) ON EOS-AM1

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), with 36 ban ds and 0.25-, 0.5-, and 1.0-km geometric instantaneous-fields-of-view (GIFOV's) at nadir, has completed system level testing and has been in tegrated onto the Earth Observing System (EOS)-AM1 spacecraft, which i s slated for launch in 1998, Raytheon Santa Barbara Remote Sensing (SB RS), Goleta, Ck, the MODIS developer, has performed extensive characte rization and calibration measurements that have demonstrated a system that meets or exceeds most of NASA's demanding requirements. Based on this demonstrated capability, the MODIS Science Team, an international group of 28 land, ocean, atmosphere, and calibration remote-sensing s cientists, has commenced delivery of algorithms that will routinely ca lculate 42 MODIS standard data products postlaunch, These products ran ge from atmospheric aerosols, snow cover, and land and water surface t emperature to leaf area index, ocean chlorophyll concentration, and se a ice extent, to name just a few. A description of the Science Team, i ncluding members' research interests and descriptions of their MODIS a lgorithms, can be found at the MODIS homepage (http://Itpwww.gsfc.nasa .gov/MODIS/MODIS.html). The MODIS system level testing included suffic ient measurements in both ambient and thermal-vacuum environments to b oth demonstrate specification compliance and enable postlaunch impleme ntation of radiometric calibration algorithms. The latter will include calculations to account for changes in response versus scan angle, re sponse versus temperature, and response linearity. The system level te sts also included performance verification of the onboard calibration systems, including the solar diffuser stability monitor (SDSM), the bl ackbody (BB), and the spectral radiometric calibration assembly (SRCA) , which will enable monitoring of MODIS performance postlaunch, Descri ptions of these subsystems are also on the MODIS homepage.