NPOESS VIIRS Calibration Activities

The Visible and Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) is an advance in design and performance over the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Earth Observing System (EOS). VIIRS is in development for the operational missions of the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environment Satellite System (NPOESS). The first flight of the VIIRS is on the NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP) mission. The VIIRS engineering unit is undergoing system calibration and characterization at this time. Our primary focus of this material is the calibration of the reflected solar bands, and the overall calibration and testing design flows from the Sensor Data Record product accuracy as captured in the product uncertainty budgets. Testing approaches for the radiometric performance parameters are reviewed, and the requirements for an end-to-end VIIRS radiometric test are identified in the context of the uncertainty budget. These end-to-end tests have been performed pre-flight on satellite-borne ozone back scatter sensors for more than two decades and materials from the scientific and engineering published literature on the ozone sensors will be presented here as background for the VIIRS test. The first testing performance results for laboratory ambient testing are included here as well.