Overview of Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER)

TLDR

The Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) is a NASA Earth Observing System instrument launched in 1998 that delivers high‑resolution multispectral data across visible, near‑infrared, shortwave infrared, and thermal infrared bands, enabling detailed discrimination of surface materials and atmospheric interactions. Its primary goal is to enhance knowledge of local and regional surface and atmospheric processes, including land surface climatology, vegetation dynamics, volcano and hazard monitoring, aerosols, carbon cycling, hydrology, geology, and land‑cover change. ASTER data are organized into global maps, regional monitoring datasets, and investigator‑requested local data.

Abstract

The Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) is a research facility instrument provided by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), Tokyo, Japan to be launched on NASA's Earth Observing System morning (EOS-AM1) platform in 1998. ASTER has three spectral hands in the visible near-infrared (VNIR), six bands in the shortwave infrared (SWIR), and five bands in the thermal infrared (TIR) regions, with 15-, 30-, and 90-m ground resolution, respectively. The VNIR subsystem has one backward-viewing band for stereoscopic observation in the along-track direction. Because the data will have wide spectral coverage and relatively high spatial resolution, it will be possible to discriminate a variety of surface materials and reduce problems in some lower resolution data resulting from mixed pixels. ASTER will, for the first time, provide high-spatial resolution multispectral thermal infrared data from orbit and the highest spatial resolution surface spectral reflectance temperature and emissivity data of all of the EOS-AM1 instruments. The primary science objective of the ASTER mission is to improve understanding of the local- and regional-scale processes occurring on or near the Earth's surface and lower atmosphere, including surface-atmosphere interactions. Specific areas of the science investigation include the following: (1) land surface climatology; (2) vegetation and ecosystem dynamics; (3) volcano monitoring; (4) hazard monitoring; (5) aerosols and clouds; (6) carbon cycling in the marine ecosystem; (7) hydrology; (8) geology and soil; and (9) land surface and land cover change. There are three categories of ASTER data: a global map, regional monitoring data sets, and local data sets to be obtained for requests from individual investigators.