Thermal Lens: Calibration is the poor step-child of remote sensing designs

Those Space People

“Calibration is the poor step-child of remote sensing designs” - Ellis Freedman

Welcome back to the second part of our conversation with Ellis Freedman, the founder of Serious Science. In the previous episode, Ellis talked about the differences between big space missions and smaller newspace ones. Today, we're diving into thermal mission design.

We'll cover essential topics like challenges in satellite bus design for thermal payloads, calibrating IR sensors, and understanding the hardware behind IR imaging systems. Ellis emphasizes the significance of fundamental radiometry knowledge for users of thermal data, elaborating on several key concepts, and delves into the skills required to work with thermal data. And lastly, he discusses the impact of AI and ML on thermal data processing and shares his predictions for the future of thermal remote sensing.

• (00:00) - Intro
• (01:28) - Challenges in mission design for thermal satellites
• (10:42) - Calibration of IR sensors
• (14:18) - Hardware components of IR imaging systems
• (18:29) - Radiometry knowledge required for thermal data users
• (22:02) - Skills needed to work with thermal data
• (25:24) - Radiometric processing in TIR vs Visible
• (26:45) - Impact of AI and ML on thermal data processing
• (30:40) - Future evolution of thermal remote sensing
• (34:57) - The End