The ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) mission measures the temperature of plants to better understand how much water plants need and how they respond to stress. ECOSTRESS is attached to the International Space Station (ISS) and collects data globally between 52° N and 52° S latitudes. A map of the acquisition coverage can be found on the ECOSTRESS website.
The ECOSTRESS Tiled Top of Atmosphere Calibrated Radiance Instantaneous Level 1 Global 70 m (ECO_L1CT_RAD) Version 2 data product provides at-sensor calibrated radiance values retrieved for five thermal infrared (TIR) bands operating between 8 and 12.5 µm. This tiled data product is generated from the ECO_L1CG_RAD Version 2 data product using a modified version of the Military Grid Reference System (MGRS), which divides Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) zones into square tiles that are 109.8 km by 109.8 km with a 70 meter (m) spatial resolution. Each ECOSTRESS pixel can be assumed to remain at the same location at each timestep within a tile.
The ECO_L1CT_RAD Version 2 data product contains 12 layers distributed in Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF (COG) format consisting of separate files containing five TIR bands, associated data quality indicators, and cloud and water masks.
| Characteristic | Description |
|---|---|
| Collection | ECOSTRESS |
| DOI | 10.5067/ECOSTRESS/ECO_L1CT_RAD.002 |
| File Size | ~20 MB |
| Temporal Resolution | Varies |
| Temporal Extent | 2018-07-09 to Present |
| Spatial Extent | Global (+/- 52 degrees latitude) |
| Coordinate System | Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) |
| Datum | World Geodetic System (WGS84) |
| File Format | GeoTIFF |
| Geographic Dimensions | 109.8 km x 109.8 km |
| Characteristic | Description |
|---|---|
| Number of Science Dataset (SDS) Layers | 12 |
| Columns/Rows | 1568 x 1568 |
| Pixel Size | 70 m |
| SDS Name | Description | Units | Data Type | Fill Value | No Data Value | Valid Range | Scale Factor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| radiance_1 | TIR 8.285 microns¹ | W/m²/sr/μm | 32-bit floating point | NaN | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| radiance_2 | TIR 8.785 microns | W/m²/sr/μm | 32-bit floating point | NaN | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| radiance_3 | TIR 9.060 microns¹ | W/m²/sr/μm | 32-bit floating point | NaN | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| radiance_4 | TIR 10.522 microns | W/m²/sr/μm | 32-bit floating point | NaN | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| radiance_5 | TIR 12.001 microns | W/m²/sr/μm | 32-bit floating point | NaN | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| data_quality_1 | Data Quality Indicators for radiance_1 | N/A | 16-bit unsigned integer | N/A | N/A | 0 to 4 | N/A |
| data_quality_2 | Data Quality Indicators for radiance_2 | N/A | 16-bit unsigned integer | N/A | N/A | 0 to 4 | N/A |
| data_quality_3 | Data Quality Indicators for radiance_3 | N/A | 16-bit unsigned integer | N/A | N/A | 0 to 4 | N/A |
| data_quality_4 | Data Quality Indicators for radiance_4 | N/A | 16-bit unsigned integer | N/A | N/A | 0 to 4 | N/A |
| data_quality_5 | Data Quality Indicators for radiance_5 | N/A | 16-bit unsigned integer | N/A | N/A | 0 to 4 | N/A |
| cloud | Cloud mask | N/A | 8-bit unsigned integer | N/A | N/A | 0, 1 | N/A |
| water | Water mask | N/A | 8-bit unsigned integer | N/A | N/A | 0, 1 | N/A |
¹For data acquired between May 15, 2019, and April 28, 2023, this is fill data only.
| Class | Description |
|---|---|
| 0 | Clear |
| 1 | Cloudy |
| Class | Description |
|---|---|
| 0 | Land |
| 1 | Water |
| Class | Description |
|---|---|
| 0 | Good |
| 1 | Missing stripe data, filled in |
| 2 | Missing stripe data, not filled in |
| 3 | Missing/bad data |
| 4 | Not seen |
Quality information for this product, including the bit definition index for the quality layer, is obtained from the ECO_L1B_RAD product. It is provided in Section 3.3 of the ECO_L1B_RAD User Guide.
Data acquisition gap: ECOSTRESS was launched on June 29, 2018, and moved to autonomous science operations on August 20, 2018, following a successful in-orbit checkout period. On September 29, 2018, ECOSTRESS experienced an anomaly with its primary mass storage unit (MSU). ECOSTRESS has a primary and secondary MSU (A and B). On December 5, 2018, the instrument was switched to the secondary MSU and science operations resumed. On March 14, 2019, the secondary MSU experienced a similar anomaly, temporarily halting science acquisitions. On May 15, 2019, a new data acquisition approach was implemented, and science acquisitions resumed. To optimize the new acquisition approach TIR bands 2, 4, and 5 are being downloaded. The data products are as previously, except the bands not downloaded contain fill values (L1 radiance and L2 emissivity). This approach was implemented from May 15, 2019, through April 28, 2023.
Data acquisition gap: From February 8 to February 16, 2020, an ECOSTRESS instrument issue resulted in a data anomaly that created striping in band 4 (10.5 micron). These data products have been reprocessed and are available for download. No ECOSTRESS data were acquired on February 17, 2020, due to the instrument being in SAFEHOLD. Data acquired following the anomaly have not been affected.
Missing scan data/striping features: During testing, an instrument artifact was encountered in ECOSTRESS bands 1 and 5, resulting in missing values. A machine learning algorithm has been applied to interpolate missing values. For more information on the missing scan filling techniques and outcomes, see Section 3.3.2 of the ECO_L1B_RAD User Guide.
Scan overlap: An overlap between ECOSTRESS scans results in a clear line overlap and repeating data. Additional information is available in Section 3.2 of the ECO_L1B_RAD User Guide.
Scan flipping: Improvements to the visualization of the data to compensate for instrument orientation are discussed in Section 3.4 of the ECO_L1B_RAD User Guide.
Data acquisition: ECOSTRESS has now successfully returned to 5-band mode after being in 3-band mode since 2019. This feature was successfully enabled following a Data Processing Unit firmware update (version 4.1) to the payload on April 28, 2023. To better balance contiguous science data scene variables, 3-band collection is currently being interleaved with 5-band acquisitions over the orbital day/night periods.