A Multispectral Scanner Data Decommutator/Processor for the Earth Resources Technology Satellite

Abstract

This paper describes the design of the telemetry decommutator/processor for multispectral scanner data to be returned by the first two Earth Resources Technology Satellites (ERTS). This unit, referred to as the Multispectral Scanner Tape Decommutator/processor (MSS TDP), is a versatile data handling system which accepts multipletrack tape inputs, providing output formats compatible with a multipletrack tape recorder or a single channel film recorder. The system is organized as a parallel processor, being capable of decommutating and formatting five spectral bands of digital video data. Synchronization and decommutation of skewed multiple-track data is performed with housekeeping and calibration data being transferred to a control computer. A six scan line buffer is asynchronously loaded and synchronously unloaded to remove data skew and reformat the video data. The unit includes a highspeed arithmetic processor which performs radiometric calibration of a single spectral band of video data prior to film recording. The primary function of the MSS TDP will be the processing of receiving site data tapes for conversion to film images.