Summary of the 51st U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team Meeting

The Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) team organized a 3-day Science Team Workshop, held at Japan Space System’s (JSS) offices in Tokyo, Japan, on November 7-9. The meeting was attended by over 40 participants from Japan and the U.S, some of whom are shown in Figure 1 below. From the U.S., participants were from NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), NASA’s Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LPDAAC), University of Arizona (UA), and University of Pittsburgh (UP). From Japan, participants were from Japan Space Systems (JSS), Ibaraki University (IU), Nagoya University (NU), University of Tokyo (UT), Tohoku University (TU), National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), and University of Tsukuba (UT). The main objectives of this meeting were to discuss mission status, data products, science team projects, data calibration, validation, distribution, applications and end-of-mission plans. Another topic of immediate concern was NASA Headquarter’s recent Request For Information (RFI) for new science from drifting orbits of Terra, Aqua, and Aura; and the associated previous week’s workshop where each instrument team discussed the appropriate submissions with their constituency, and sought additional ideas for new science. With the 2023 Senior Review approaching, HQ has some important decisions to make regarding future funding for Terra, Aqua, and Aura.