Clean Room at NASA Goddard #tourntweet

Scientists work on parts for TIRS (Thermal Infrared Sensor) in a Class 10,000 clean room at NASA Goddard.

These video clips were captured during NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's inaugural "Tour & Tweet" on October 27, 2010 in Greenbelt, MD.

You can read more about the "Tour & Tweet" at:
http://captico.com/recap-of-nasa-goddard-flight-center-tour-and-tweet/2010/10


"TIRS is one of two instruments flying on the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM), the next generation in a series of satellites that have provided multispectral data of Earth's surface for more than 38 years. TIRS and the Operational Land Imager (OLI), being built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp in Boulder, Colo., will extend Landsat's unparalleled record of Earth's changing landscapes.
NASA plans to launch LDCM in December 2012 as the follow-on to Landsat-7, launched in 1999. Landsat 7 and 5, launched in 1984, are continuing to supply images and operating beyond their design lives. As with preceding Landsat missions, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) will operate LDCM and maintain its data archive once it begins observations.
The 236-kg (525-lb.) TIRS is a two-channel thermal imager, providing 100-meter (328 feet) spatial resolution across a 185 km (115 mile) field-of-view. Both Landsats-5 and -7 provide thermal data, and the addition of TIRS will extend the Landsat database in the thermal infrared bands needed by a variety of users.
Thermal data are used operationally to monitor such things as water consumption on a field-by-field basis in the U.S. West mainly for agricultural purposes, said LDCM project scientist Jim Irons. TIRS will continue providing surface-temperature readings considered vital in a technique that resource managers in Idaho and other western states use to measure water use through evapotranspiration. As its name implies, evapotranspiration combines the evaporation of water into the atmosphere and the water vapor released by plants through respiration. "A transpiring plant is cooler than the surrounding area," Irons said. "If a forest is dry, it will not transpire and it will be warmer." "

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• NASA
• Goddard
• TIRS
• clean room
• infrared
• sensor
• thermal
• imager
• captico
• #tourntweet
• tour and tweet