Persistent observations of the Arctic from highly elliptical orbits using multispectral, wide field of view day-night imagers

摘要

Persistent satellite observations are essential for monitoring and understanding Earth's environmentally sensitive and rapidly changing Arctic region. Compact wide-field-of-view imagers aboard satellites in Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO) could stare at the Arctic and collect multispectral, high dynamic range visible and near-infrared imagery with sensitivity similar to that of the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Day/Night Band (DNB) in sun synchronous polar orbit. These HEO Day/Night Imagers (HDNIs) provide high contrast visible wavelength imagery through the long polar night. Their dynamic range - extending from the brightest sunlit clouds, ice and snow to reflected moonlight from open water - enables cloud, ice and sea surface discrimination even under very low light and low thermal contrast conditions. Rapidly refreshed HDNI data results in frequent updates to key environmental products such as cloud imagery and microphysical properties, ice and open water distribution (including real-time maps of where leads are opening and new ice is forming), vector ice motion and vector polar winds from cloud motion. The relatively small size of HDNIs makes them ideal for deployment as a hosted payload or as the primary payload onboard a small satellite.