Onboard processing of orbital hyperspectral thermal infrared images

We have devised an on-board processing system for hyperspectral thermal infrared (TIR) images, to be acquired from a spacecraft in low-Earth orbit. The onboard thermal infrared spectrometer (OTIS) system is capable of in-scene atmospheric compensation, temperature-emissivity separation and image analysis with a choice of algorithms. OTIS is written in C using the message-passing interface (MPI) libraries that allow parallel processing for improved performance and fault tolerance. OTIS is implemented for testing on an 8-node Beowulf cluster of Intel-based PCs running Linux, as well as a series of multi-processor testbeds at JPL. OTIS functioning has been tested using airborne TIR imaging spectrometer images, as well as spaceborne multispectral TIR data from the currently operational Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) instrument on NASA´s Earth Observing System Terra (formerly EOS-AM1) spacecraft.