PREFIRE Spectral Radiance from PREFIRE Satellite 1 R01

PREFIRE (Polar Radiant Energy in the Far InfraRed Experiment) Spectral Radiance from PREFIRE Satellite 1 (PREFIRE_SAT1_1B-RAD) contains calibrated and geolocated radiance data retrieved from data collected by the PREFIRE Thermal Infrared Spectrometer (TIRS-PREFIRE) aboard PREFIRE-SAT1. Dual CubeSats each carry a TIRS-PREFIRE, a push broom spectrometer with 63 channels measuring mid- and far-infrared (FIR) radiation from approximately 5 to 53 µm. Most polar emissions are in the FIR but have not been measured on a large scale. PREFIRE aims to fill knowledge gaps in the global energy budget by more accurately characterizing polar emissions. This information will be assimilated into global circulation and other models to predict future conditions more accurately. PREFIRE_SAT1_1B-RAD data is processed by geolocating the calibrated radiance data in PREFIRE_SAT1_1A-RAD using the pointing and position telemeters in PREFIRE_SAT1_0-BUS-TLM and a Digital Elevation Map.

The PREFIRE_SAT1_1A-RAD data is used to analyze the radiative budget in polar regions and produce 3 products: top-of-atmosphere spectral flux, surface spectral emissivity, and atmospheric properties such as cloud cover, temperature profiles, and water vapor profiles.

Science data retrieval started July 24, 2024 and is ongoing. Geographic coverage is global, with the greatest concentration of data in the polar regions. Within the orbital swath there are eight distinct tracks of data associated with the eight separate spatial scenes for each PREFIRE-TIRS. At the beginning of the mission, the approximate scene footprint sizes were 11.8 km x 34.8 km (cross-track x along-track), with gaps between each scene of approximately 24.2 km. The entire swath was ~264 km across. Note that the scene footprint and swath sizes quoted here are for the orbit altitude soon after launch. However, the footprint size will slowly become smaller as the orbit altitude decreases with time. This data has a temporal resolution of 0.707 seconds and is available in netCDF-4.

Calibrated and geolocated radiance data for the sister instrument aboard PREFIRE-SAT2 can be found in the PREFIRE_SAT2_1B-RAD collection.

Data and Resources

Additional Info

Field Value
Maintainer Earthdata Forum
Last Updated September 15, 2026, 04:01 (UTC)
Created June 2, 2025, 04:32 (UTC)
accessLevel public
bureauCode {026:00}
catalog_conformsTo https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
harvest_object_id 9e88578d-51b0-416e-a654-c937bd364ce5
harvest_source_id b99e41c6-fe79-4c19-bbc3-9b6c8111bfac
harvest_source_title Science Discovery Engine
identifier 10.5067/PREFIRE-SAT1/PREFIRE/RAD_L1B.R01
license https://www.usa.gov/government-works
modified 2026-09-07T22:16:03Z
programCode {026:000}
publisher NASA/LARC/SD/ASDC
resource-type Dataset
source_datajson_identifier true
source_hash 113eb852e9c5ccddb64340a35ce8b459cf335cfcc04d2e3365f3ac84c315d8c0
source_schema_version 1.1
spatial ["GEODETIC", [{"NorthBoundingCoordinate": 84, "WestBoundingCoordinate": -180, "EastBoundingCoordinate": 180, "SouthBoundingCoordinate": -84}]]
temporal 2024-07-24/2026-09-07
theme {"Earth Science"}