RIT researchers win USGS grant to improve Landsat 8 data

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Rochester Institute of Technology researchers have won funding from the U.S. Geological Survey to ensure accurate temperature data from NASA’s Landsat 8 satellite. Climate researchers depend on public data from the Earth-sensing satellite to measure surface changes over time.

Rochester Institute of Technology researchers have won funding from the U.S. Geological Survey to ensure accurate temperature data from NASA’s Landsat 8 satellite. Climate researchers depend on public data from the Earth-sensing satellite to measure surface changes over time.

The agency awarded Aaron Gerace and Matthew Montanaro, senior scientists in RIT’s Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science, a five-year, $500,000 grant to continue monitoring improvements they made to Landsat 8’s Thermal Infrared Sensor, or TIRS.

The RIT researchers developed a software correction to compensate for faulty optics discovered in the instrument following the Landsat 8 launch in 2013. Corrected image data collected from the Thermal Infrared Sensor shows accuracies similar to previous Landsat instruments, said Gerace and Montanaro.

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Image: An artist’s rendition of Landsat 8 satellite.

Image Credits: NASA