Proceedings Article | 27 January 1997
KEYWORDS: MODIS, Space operations, Clouds, Aerosols, Calibration, Atmospheric particles, Landsat, Earth observing sensors, Data storage, Imaging systems
EOS AM-2, scheduled to launch in 2004, is the second mission in the EOS AM series within NASA's Mission to Planet Earth program. The EOS AM-2 mission will measure the Earth's radiation budget and atmospheric radiation, global land use, land cover change, local-scale ecological and biogeochemical processes, global aerosol distribution and cloud properties, top-of-atmosphere, cloud, and surface angular reflectance functions, surface albedo, aerosol, and vegetation properties, as well as biological and physical processes on land and the ocean. The baseline instrument complement for the EOS AM-2 mission includes five instruments: the Landsat Advanced Technology Instrument, which will continue the Landsat series of measurements; advanced versions of three instrument that will have flown on the EOS AM-1 mission: the Advanced Moderate Resolution Imaging SpectroRadiometer, the Advanced Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer, and the clouds and the earth radiant energy system; and a new instrument, the Earth Observing Scanning Polarimeter. Several options are being explored to deploy this instrument complement, including several single spacecraft configurations as well as multiple spacecraft configurations. The driving requirements contributing to the choice of a spacecraft configuration include measurement continuity, coverage, resolution, geolocation, co- registration, repeat cycle, and calibration; important constraints are cost and launch vehicle availability.
