VNP02MOD: VIIRS/NPP 750m Geolocation and Observation Angles

VNP02MOD provides geolocation and observational geometry data for the VIIRS sensor aboard the Suomi NPP satellite. The dataset contains derived line-of-sight vectors and geodetic coordinates for each 750-meter moderate-resolution pixel. It includes parameters such as latitude, longitude, surface height, solar and sensor zenith/azimuth angles, a land/water mask, and a quality flag.

Use Cases

• Precise georeferencing of VIIRS imagery based on derived line-of-sight vectors and geodetic coordinates.
• Atmospheric correction and radiative transfer modeling using solar and sensor zenith/azimuth angles.
• Land/water classification and masking for environmental monitoring based on the included mask.
• Quality assessment and filtering of satellite data using the per-pixel quality flag.

Strengths

• Cross-platform presence on NASA Earthdata and Data.gov signals established importance and reliability.
• Provides a comprehensive suite of geolocation and observational geometry parameters for each pixel.
• Derived from sophisticated inputs including Earth ellipsoid, geoid, digital terrain model, and precise satellite ephemeris/attitude data.

Limitations

• Critical metadata such as column names, row count, and dataset size are not provided on any platform.
• The exact license terms are unspecified, only noted as 'other-license-specified'.
• Author and organizational attribution are incomplete or missing.

Provenance

Source

LAADS (Level-1 and Atmosphere Archive & Distribution System), NASA.

Collection Method

Algorithmic processing of Suomi NPP platform ephemeris, attitude data, and VIIRS sensor geometry.

Time Range

null

Freshness

2026-04-09 21:10:29.118699

Geography

Global swath coverage from the Suomi NPP satellite orbit.