Experiment of KOMPSAT-3/3A Absolute Radiometric Calibration Coefficients Estimation Using FLARE Target

KOMPSAT-3/3A (K3/K3A) absolute radiometric calibration study was conducted based on a Field Line of sight Automated Radiance Exposure (FLARE) system. FLARE is a system, which has been developed by Labsphere, Inc. adopted a SPecular Array Radiometric Calibration (SPARC) concept. The FLARE utilizes a specular mirror target resulting in a simplified radiometric calibration method by minimizing other sources of diffusive radiative energies. Several targeted measurements of K3/3A satellites over a FLARE site were acquired during a field campaign period (July 5-15, 2021). Due to bad weather situations, only two observations of K3 were identified as effective samples and they were employed for the study. Absolute radiometric calibration coefficients were computed using combined information from the FLARE and K3 satellite measurements. Comparison between the two FLARE measurements (taken on 7/7 and 7/13) showed very consistent results (less than 1% difference between them except the NIR channel). When additional data sets of K3/K3A taken on Aug 2021 were also analyzed and compared with gain coefficients from the metadata which are used by current K3/K3A, It showed a large discrepancy. It is assumed that more studies are needed to verify usefulness of the FLARE system for the K3/3A absolute radiometric calibration.