[GLIMS] GLIMS Update: News from the ASTER Science Team

[Jeffrey]

Dear GLIMS colleagues,You may have thought I disappeared from GLIMS, but my roles simply shifted and contracted to some extent, as Bruce has ably taken the reigns.  One of my roles continues to be on the ASTER Science Team, which is holding a meeting as I type.  I have some good news that most likely Terra (and ASTER) will be kept in NASA's A Train constellation longer than seemed likely, so that a reasonable approximation to current operations may continue until 2022 (with just a slow drift to earlier equator crossings starting in 2018).  Following 2022, there will be a couple more years before the orbit and trajectory intersects with the atmosphere and Earth surface.  But even for those two years, modified operations could take place into 2024, giving us one good thing (much higher resolution) at the expense of a lot of other things, if NASA chooses to keep it operating.  During that period, a rapid draft to earlier morning equator crossings will take place, which is a disruption but can also potentially allow some great studies of ice sheets and ice caps (low slope surfaces). In any case, ASTER and MODIS life may be extended.Let's not "hang our hat" on another plan being discussed by NASA Goddard, and that is a refueling mission. But that is a real discussion.
More good news: There is an improved standard higher level product called ASTER 1T, which incorporates Landsat 8-based orthorectification.  This product may be used as an alternative to Level 1B data.
On the bad side of the news, there has been a partial failure of the thermal calibration blackbody, which now offers just one calibration temperature for TIR. However TIR is understood well enough that it, along with vicarious calibrations done for Earth observations targets, can be enough for high quality calibrations to continue.--Jeff 		 	   		  
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