The ATSR-2-new products

The launch of ERS-2 in April this year (1995) will carry the second version of the Along Track Scanning Radiometer (ATSR-2) into space. This instrument is an enhanced version of the ATSR-1 instrument with additional channels at the visible wavelengths of 0.55, 0.65 and 0.87 μm. These new channels have been carefully chosen to provide the ATSR-2 instrument with additional capabilities for land remote sensing applications, in particular for monitoring vegetation cover and state, and to provide an improvement in sensitivity over existing satellite instrumentation. The ATSR-2 instrument´s dual-view will also allow land remote sensing experts to observe the surface through the atmosphere at two different angles. This will provide both new information far the atmospheric correction of visible channel data and new opportunities for studying the bi-directional reflectance properties of the Earth´s surface. The ATSR-1 and ATSR-2 instruments and their basic features are described, with emphasis on the new features of ATSR-2, its products, and the applications for its new visible channel data