Wide-swath and high-resolution whisk-broom imaging and on-orbit performance of SDGSAT-1 thermal infrared spectrometer

Wide-swath and high-resolution Thermal infrared (TIR) data are limited by the mutual constraint between swath and resolution. In this paper, we propose a whisk-broom imaging method with the long-linear-array (LLA) 4stage TDI detector (a total of 2048 pixels along splicing direction) and high-precision one-dimensional scanning mirror to achieve 30 m resolution and 300 km swath. And it is being implemented in the first SDGs satellite (SATSAT-1) thermal infrared spectrometer (TIS). Specially, the integration time of whisk-broom imaging system is limited by the speed of scanning mirror, and the shorter integration time is a huge challenge to meet the requirement of high sensitivity and dynamic range. The HgCdTe detector has been improved in its annealing process to reduce dark current and noise, and the opto-mechanical system has been regulated at 195 K to reduce instrument self-emission. To address the limitations of small satellite resources, TIS is equipped with a highly integrated and lightweight design, weighing 247.5 kg and consuming 248 watts respectively. As a result of the complexity of imaging mechanisms and the low frequency of deep space observations, positioning error and radiometric calibration resources have increased, and geometric and radiometric calibration methods have been improved. On-orbit test results show that TIS is capable of detecting temperature differences with a NEdT (noise equivalent differential temperature) less than 0.08 K@300 K, an absolute radiometric accuracy of less than 1 K @ 300 K, and MTF of greater than 0.125. Presently, a collection of more than 201,856 scenes covering land and marine and some precious TIR datasets of planes and naval vessels have been obtained and provided for United Nations for the realization of SDGs goals.

Automated summary

This paper proposes a whisk-broom imaging method using a long-linear-array detector and high-precision scanning mirror to achieve high-resolution and wide-swath thermal infrared data. The method has been implemented in the SDGs satellite and has shown promising test results.