SATELLITE INSTRUMENT
DMSP-OLS
The Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) is a program of the U.S. Department of Defense, run by the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center. Having started in 1970, it is dedicated to the monitoring of the meteorological, oceanographic, and solar-terrestrial physics environments. The Operational Linescan System (OLS) acquired global day-night time imagery of the Earth in two spectral band (visible and infrared), twice per day.

TYPE OF INSTRUMENT
Radiometric imaging sensor

STATUS
Decommissioned

DATA AVAILABILITY
Yes, freely available

TIME RANGE
1992 – 2014

FREQUENCY OF MEASUREMENT
Continuous
(12 hours revisit cycle)

DATA PUBLISHING FREQUENCY
n/a

DATA PUBLISHING DELAY
n/a
MORE INFORMATION

CALIBRATED DATA
Partially

MEASUREMENT UNIT
W/cm²/sr

WAVELENGTH RANGE
500 – 900 nm

OBSERVED AREA
from -180° to 180° of long. from -65° to +75° of lat.

FIELD-OF-VIEW
3000 km swath

POINTING DIRECTION
Nadir

SPATIAL RESOLUTION
2.7 km

ORBIT TYPE
Sun-synchronous low alt. polar orbit (830 km alt.)

DATA VISUALISATION
No

DATA FORMAT
GeoTIFF, ENVI

DATA POLICY
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
FURTHER REFERENCES
– DMSP program
– DMSP – OLS Nighttime Light Data from EOG / Earth Observation Group (read the article)
– Radiance Calibration on DMSP-OLS Data (read the article)
– Extension of DMSP Nighttime Lights Data beyond 2013 (read the article)
– Cross-calibration between DMSP and VIIRS data (read the article)
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