Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Videos

EROS CalVal Center of Excellence (ECCOE) videos.

Aerial photo looking down at a field with drone operator and reference objects used for calibration of payload instruments Aerial photo looking down at a field with drone operator and reference objects used for calibration of payload instruments
B-Roll: 2025 UAS radiometric calibration and validation research in Golden, Colorado
B-Roll: 2025 UAS radiometric calibration and validation research in Golden, Colorado

Calibration and validation (cal/val) are essential steps to ensure that remotely sensed data are reliable for scientific use. Radiometric cal/val involves converting digital image pixel values to meaningful units and assessing their accuracy.  

Watering the Sahara
Watering the Sahara
Watering the Sahara

In a remote part of the Sahara Desert in Egypt, center pivot irrigation fields fill the landscape. Thanks to the Landsat archive, we can see how dramatically this area has changed over the last 35 years. But until the growth in irrigation, this part of the world hadn't changed much from a satellite's perspective.

In a remote part of the Sahara Desert in Egypt, center pivot irrigation fields fill the landscape. Thanks to the Landsat archive, we can see how dramatically this area has changed over the last 35 years. But until the growth in irrigation, this part of the world hadn't changed much from a satellite's perspective.

Landsat's Calibration and Validation
Landsat's Calibration and Validation
Landsat's Calibration and Validation

Engineers and scientists from both Landsat and Sentinel missions are working together to calibrate observation data and validate its quality to improve the science using these resources.
 

Engineers and scientists from both Landsat and Sentinel missions are working together to calibrate observation data and validate its quality to improve the science using these resources.
 

Every Pixel - Landsat's Sensors
Every Pixel - Landsat's Sensors
Every Pixel - Landsat's Sensors

On board Landsat 8 are two sensors that capture data about earth's surface. Here is an explanation of the instruments that capture every pixel.
 

Every Pixel - Processing Data
Every Pixel - Processing Data
Every Pixel - Processing Data

Once the ground stations receive data from Landsat, there's still a lot of processing to make every pixel usable. Here's an overview of some of that work.
 

Was this page helpful?