The new NASA satellite called “Terra” was launched successfully in December 1999 with MODIS and four other sensors on board.
Terra (formerly known as EOS AM-1) is the flagship of NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS), a major international science program to monitor climate and environmental change. Terra is collecting a new global data set to enable research into the ways that Earth's lands, oceans, atmosphere, ice, radiant energy, and life function as a whole system. In February 2000, Terra reached final orbit and acquired its first images, some of which are now available to the public.
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Learn more at the Terra website |
These data are integral to the GTOS/NPP Demonstration Project. Data products from the MODIS instrument on board Terra will be compared with global validation sites as part of a collaborative Demonstration Project of the Global Terrestrial Observing System (GTOS). The collaboration, known as the GTOS - Net Primary Productivity (NPP) Demo Project will distribute global product map imagery of NPP, leaf are index (LAI) measures and land cover classifications to GTOS sites for evaluation with ground-based measurements. This validation effort will complement a more intensive effort within NASA’s "BigFoot" validation project. The goal will be to translate this standard product to regionally specific crop, range, and forest yield maps for land-management applications.
Learn more about the GTOS/ GTNET Demo Project