Retrieving orbital track, scan and time information
Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2020 10:36 pm America/New_York
I'm working on a research project that aims to reproduce a number of historic wildfires based on data, including notably satellite data (MODIS and VIIRS) from FIRMS. To do this I am trying to solve two related problems:
1. How to translate the track and scan fields in the FIRMS data into an area on the ground that is covered by that data point. I guess that means knowing the angle at which the satellite is tracking, but ideally I'd just like a formula that I can feed to my GIS software.
2. How to detect when a hot spot has cooled, that is when the satellite makes a pass without detecting a hot spot. The FIRMS fire map indicates that orbital track information is available from https://www.space-track.org but other than some amusingly retro-modernist fonts I can't seem to find anything useful there.
Many thanks in advance for your assistance.
1. How to translate the track and scan fields in the FIRMS data into an area on the ground that is covered by that data point. I guess that means knowing the angle at which the satellite is tracking, but ideally I'd just like a formula that I can feed to my GIS software.
2. How to detect when a hot spot has cooled, that is when the satellite makes a pass without detecting a hot spot. The FIRMS fire map indicates that orbital track information is available from https://www.space-track.org but other than some amusingly retro-modernist fonts I can't seem to find anything useful there.
Many thanks in advance for your assistance.