Different atmospheric effects in remote sensing of uniform and nonuniform surfaces

The atmospheric effect on the radiance of sunlight scattered from the Earth-atmosphere system is greatly dependent on the surface reflectance pattern, the contrast between adjacent fields, and the optical properties of the atmosphere. In addition, the atmospheric effect is described by the range and magnitude of the adjacency effects, the atmospheric modulation transfer function, and the apparent spatial resolution of remotely sensed imagery. This paper discusses the atmospheric effect on classification of surface features and shows that surface nonuniformity can be used for developing procedures to remove the atmospheric effect from the satellite imagery.     

The FedSat Microsatellite Mission

An Australian research microsatellite, FedSat with a complement of four payloads was launched from Tanegashima, Japan on 14 December 2002 into a near-circular sun synchronous 10:30 LT polar orbit at an inclination of 98.7° and altitude 800 km. Scientific experiments include a triaxial fluxgate magnetometer with a frequency response up to 100 Hz and a GPS receiver to monitor total electron content (TEC) and provide a precise orbit determination. Communications experiments include a Ka-band transponder and a UHF packet data service. A high performance computer payload will test reconfigurable computing technology. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Regolith effects in planetary X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy: Laboratory studies at 1.7–6.4 keV

Laboratory measurements are presented to study the effects of the physical properties of regolith on planetary soft X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy. Two laboratory setups are used to independently measure these regolith effects using lunar regolith analog samples with three different particle-size ranges. Discussion is given on the data analysis. Some of the data may be valid only for qualitative conclusions. Analytical modelling is used to separate the effects expected for a plane-parallel and homogeneous medium from those of measured regolith analogs. The surface roughness and porosity of the regolith are observed to induce an enhancement of the higher-energy part of the spectrum as a function of the incidence angle. The enhancement is larger for rougher surfaces. A brief discussion is given on the relevance of this study for future planetary missions carrying soft X-ray spectrometers.