Terra MODIS on-orbit spectral characterization and performance

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) protoflight model onboard the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Earth Observing System Terra spacecraft has been in operation for over five years since its launch in December 1999. It makes measurements using 36 spectral bands with wavelengths from 0.41 to 14.5 mu m. Bands 1-19 and 26 with wavelengths below 2.2 mu m, the reflective solar bands (RSBs), collect daytime reflected solar radiance at three nadir spatial resolutions: 0.25 km (bands 1-2), 0.5 km (bands 3-7), and 1 km (bands 8-19 and 26). Bands 20-25 and 27-36, the thermal emissive bands, collect both daytime and nighttime thermal emissions, at 1-km nadir spatial resolution. The MODIS spectral characterization was performed prelaunch at the system level. One of the MODIS onboard calibrators, the Spectroradiometric Calibration Assembly (SRCA), was designed to perform on-orbit spectral characterization of the MODIS RSB. This paper provides a brief overview of MODIS prelaunch spectral characterization, but focuses primarily on the algorithms and results of using the SRCA for on-orbit spectral characterization. Discussions are provided on the RSB center wavelength measurements and their relative spectral response retrievals, comparisons of on-orbit results with those from prelaunch measurements, and the dependence of center wavelength shifts on instrument temperature. For Terra MODIS, the center wavelength shifts over the past five years are less than 0.5 nm for most RSBs, indicating excellent stability of the instrument's spectral characteristics. Similar spectral performance has also been obtained from the Aqua MODIS (launched in May 2002) SRCA measurements.