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The Joint Polar-Orbiting Satellite System’s (JPSS) flagship instrument is the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) which features a panchromatic band with high dynamic range known as the Day Night Band (DNB). The DNB excels over a wide range of lighting conditions and as such is particularly important for nighttime imagery. In this capacity it has been serving the science community since October 2011 as part of the Suomi NPP, NOAA-20, and NOAA-21 satellites. Two more VIIRS instruments have been produced by Raytheon Corporation and are planned to go into service in 2027 and 2032 extending the current generation of polar orbiting environmental satellites into the next decade.
The last VIIRS instrument, JPSS-4 VIIRS, has been produced and recently underwent extensive environmental testing at Raytheon’s El Segundo test facility in late 2023. Measurements were made in a Thermal Vacuum (TV) chamber at three different instrument temperatures to simulate expected conditions encountered on-orbit. A comprehensive set of calibration coefficients and performance parameters have been generated from these data for both primary and redundant set of electronics. Detailed here is the radiometric calibration of the JPSS-4 VIIRS DNB with its performance in key parameters detailed including Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR), dynamic range, and uniformity comparted with the sensor requirement and previous builds.
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