NASA ECOSTRESS Project

Description

The ECO1BRAD Version 1 data product was decommissioned on May 21, 2025. Users are encouraged to use the ECO_L1CT_RAD Version 2 and ECO_L1CG_RAD Version 2 data products. The ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) mission measures the temperature of plants to better understand how much water plants need and how they respond to stress. ECOSTRESS is attached to the International Space Station (ISS) and collects data globally between 52 degrees N and 52 degrees S latitudes. . The ECO1BRAD Version 1 data product provides at-sensor calibrated radiance values retrieved for five thermal infrared (TIR) bands operating between 8 and 12.5 microns. Additionally, the digital numbers (DN) for the shortwave infrared (SWIR) band are provided. The TIR bands are spatially co-registered to produce a variable spatial resolution between 70 meters (m) to 90 m at the edge of the swath. The ECO1BRAD data product is provided as swath data and does not contain geolocation information. The corresponding ECO1BGEO data product is required to georeference the ECO1BRAD data product. The geographic coverage of acquisitions for the ECO1BRAD Version 1 data product extends to areas outside of those indicated on the coverage map. However, corresponding higher-level products over these areas are not available at this time. The ECO1BRAD Version 1 data product contains variables of radiance values for the five TIR bands, DN values for the SWIR band, associated data quality indicators, and ancillary data. Known Issues: Cannot perform spatial query on ECO1BRAD in NASA Earthdata Search: ECO1BRAD does not contain spatial attributes, so granules cannot be searched by geographic location. Users should search for ECO1BRAD data products by orbit number instead. * Data acquisition gap: ECOSTRESS was launched on June 29, 2018, and moved to autonomous science operations on August 20, 2018, following a successful in-orbit checkout period. On September 29, 2018, ECOSTRESS experienced an anomaly with its primary mass storage unit (MSU). ECOSTRESS has a primary and secondary MSU (A and B). On December 5, 2018, the instrument was switched to the secondary MSU and science operations resumed. On March 14, 2019, the secondary MSU experienced a similar anomaly temporarily halting science acquisitions. On May 15, 2019, a new data acquisition approach was implemented and science acquisitions resumed. To optimize the new acquisition approach TIR bands 2, 4 and 5 are being downloaded. The data products are as previously, except the bands not downloaded contain fill values (L1 radiance and L2 emissivity). This approach was implemented from May 15, 2019, through April 28, 2023. * Data acquisition gap: From February 8 to February 16, 2020, an ECOSTRESS instrument issue resulted in a data anomaly that created striping in band 4 (10.5 micron). These data products have been reprocessed and are available for download. No ECOSTRESS data were acquired on February 17, 2020, due to the instrument being in SAFEHOLD. Data acquired following the anomaly have not been affected. * Missing scan data/striping features: During testing, an instrument artifact was encountered in ECOSTRESS bands 1 and 5, resulting in missing values. A machine learning algorithm has been applied to interpolate missing values. For more information on the missing scan filling techniques and outcomes, see Section 3.3.2 of the User Guide. * Scan overlap: An overlap between ECOSTRESS scans results in a clear line overlap and repeating data. Additional information is available in Section 3.2 of the User Guide. * Scan flipping: Improvements to the visualization of the data to compensate for instrument orientation are discussed in Section 3.4 of the User Guide. * Cold bias: ECOSTRESS Level-1 Radiance data shows high correlation with in-situ ground measurements (R2 = 0.99 in all bands). Currently, ECOSTRESS has a cold bias of approximately 0.7 Kelvin (K), which will be corrected through calibration in future data releases. * Data acquisition: ECOSTRESS has now successfully returned to 5-band mode after being in 3-band mode since 2019. This feature was successfully enabled following a Data Processing Unit firmware update (version 4.1) to the payload on April 28, 2023. To better balance contiguous science data scene variables, 3-band collection is currently being interleaved with 5-band acquisitions over the orbital day/night periods.

ECO1BATT

The ECO1BATT Version 1 data product was decommissioned on April 22, 2025. Users are encouraged to use the ECO_L1B_ATT Version 2 data product. The ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) mission measures the temperature of plants to better understand how much water plants need and how they respond to stress. ECOSTRESS is attached to the International Space Station (ISS) and collects data globally between 52 degrees N and 52 degrees S latitudes. The ECO1BATT Version 1 data product provides both corrected and uncorrected attitude quaternions and spacecraft ephemeris data obtained from the ISS. The data are provided in 1 second intervals by the ISS, and each product file contains vectors from the duration of the orbit. The time elements are copied from the ISS raw data. The ECO1BATT Version 1 data product contains variables of corrected and uncorrected attitude quaternions, spacecraft ephemeris data including Earth-centered inertial (ECI) position and velocity, and associated time elements. Known Issues: Cannot perform spatial query on ECO1BATT in NASA Earthdata Search: ECO1BATT does not contain spatial attributes, so granules cannot be searched by geographic location. Users should search for ECO1BATT data products by orbit number instead. * Data acquisition gap: ECOSTRESS was launched on June 29, 2018, and moved to autonomous science operations on August 20, 2018, following a successful in-orbit checkout period. On September 29, 2018, ECOSTRESS experienced an anomaly with its primary mass storage unit (MSU). ECOSTRESS has a primary and secondary MSU (A and B). On December 5, 2018, the instrument was switched to the secondary MSU and science operations resumed. On March 14, 2019, the secondary MSU experienced a similar anomaly temporarily halting science acquisitions. On May 15, 2019, a new data acquisition approach was implemented and science acquisitions resumed. To optimize the new acquisition approach TIR bands 2, 4 and 5 are being downloaded. The data products are as previously, except the bands not downloaded contain fill values (L1 radiance and L2 emissivity). This approach was implemented from May 15, 2019, through April 28, 2023. * Data acquisition gap: From February 8 to February 16, 2020, an ECOSTRESS instrument issue resulted in a data anomaly that created striping in band 4 (10.5 micron). These data products have been reprocessed and are available for download. No ECOSTRESS data were acquired on February 17, 2020, due to the instrument being in SAFEHOLD. Data acquired following the anomaly have not been affected. * Data acquisition: ECOSTRESS has now successfully returned to 5-band mode after being in 3-band mode since 2019. This feature was successfully enabled following a Data Processing Unit firmware update (version 4.1) to the payload on April 28, 2023. To better balance contiguous science data scene variables, 3-band collection is currently being interleaved with 5-band acquisitions over the orbital day/night periods.

ECO2CLD

The ECO2CLD Version 1 data product was decommissioned on May 21, 2025. Users are encouraged to use the ECO_L2_CLOUD Version 2 and ECO_L2G_CLOUD Version 2 data products. The ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) mission measures the temperature of plants to better understand how much water plants need and how they respond to stress. ECOSTRESS is attached to the International Space Station (ISS) and collects data globally between 52 degrees N and 52 degrees S latitudes. The ECO2CLD Version 1 data product provides a cloud mask that can be used to determine cloud cover for the ECO1BRAD, ECO2LSTE, ECO3ETPTJPL, ECO4ESIPTJPL, and ECO4WUE data products. The ECOSTRESS Level 2 cloud product is derived using the five calibrated thermal bands in a multispectral cloud-conservative thresholding approach. The details of the algorithm are provided in the Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document (ATBD). The corresponding ECO1BGEO data product is required to georeference the ECO2CLD data product. The ECO2CLD Version 1 data product contains a single cloud mask layer. Information on how to interpret the bit fields in the cloud mask is provided in section 3.1 of the User Guide. Known Issues: Data acquisition gap: ECOSTRESS was launched on June 29, 2018, and moved to autonomous science operations on August 20, 2018, following a successful in-orbit checkout period. On September 29, 2018, ECOSTRESS experienced an anomaly with its primary mass storage unit (MSU). ECOSTRESS has a primary and secondary MSU (A and B). On December 5, 2018, the instrument was switched to the secondary MSU and science operations resumed. On March 14, 2019, the secondary MSU experienced a similar anomaly temporarily halting science acquisitions. On May 15, 2019, a new data acquisition approach was implemented and science acquisitions resumed. To optimize the new acquisition approach TIR bands 2, 4, and 5 are being downloaded. The data products are as previously, except the bands not downloaded contain fill values (L1 radiance and L2 emissivity). This approach was implemented from May 15, 2019, through April 28, 2023. * Data acquisition gap: From February 8 to February 16, 2020, an ECOSTRESS instrument issue resulted in a data anomaly that created striping in band 4 (10.5 micron). These data products have been reprocessed and are available for download. No ECOSTRESS data were acquired on February 17, 2020, due to the instrument being in SAFEHOLD. Data acquired following the anomaly have not been affected. * Data acquisition: ECOSTRESS has now successfully returned to 5-band mode after being in 3-band mode since 2019. This feature was successfully enabled following a Data Processing Unit firmware update (version 4.1) to the payload on April 28, 2023. To better balance contiguous science data scene variables, 3-band collection is currently being interleaved with 5-band acquisitions over the orbital day/night periods.

ECO4ESIALEXI

The ECO4ESIALEXI Version 1 data product was decommissioned on January 30, 2026. Users are encouraged to use the ECO_L4G_ESI_ALEXI and ECO_L4T_ESI_ALEXI Version 2 data product(s). The ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) mission measures the temperature of plants to better understand how much water plants need and how they respond to stress. ECOSTRESS is attached to the International Space Station (ISS) and collects data globally between 52 degrees N and 52 degrees S latitudes. The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) ECO4ESIALEXI Version 1 data product provides the Evaporative Stress Index (ESI), which is computed from clear-sky estimates of the relative daily evapotranspiration (ET) fraction: ESI = ET/ETo, where ET is ETdaily from the ECOSTRESS Level 3 product and ETo is the reference ET. A description of the major components of the ECOSTRESS algorithm implemented in Version 1 of the Atmosphere Land Exchange Inverse (ALEXI) Disaggregation algorithm (DisALEXI) ESI code is provided in the Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document (ATBD). ESI applications include indicating agricultural drought and observing vegetation stress. ECO4ESIALEXI is available for CONUS at 70-meter (m) pixel resolution. The ECO4ESIALEXI Version 1 data product contains variables of daily evaporative stress index, evaporative stress index uncertainty, and associated quality flags. A low-resolution browse is also available showing daily ESI as a stretched image with a color ramp in JPEG format. Known Issues: Data acquisition gaps: ECOSTRESS was launched on June 29, 2018, and moved to autonomous science operations on August 20, 2018, following a successful in-orbit checkout period. On September 29, 2018, ECOSTRESS experienced an anomaly with its primary mass storage unit (MSU). ECOSTRESS has a primary and secondary MSU (A and B). On December 5, 2018, the instrument was switched to the secondary MSU and science operations resumed. On March 14, 2019, the secondary MSU experienced a similar anomaly, temporarily halting science acquisitions. On May 15, 2019, a new data acquisition approach was implemented, and science acquisitions resumed. To optimize the new acquisition approach, only TIR bands 2, 4, and 5 are being downloaded. The data products are the same as before, but the bands not downloaded contain fill values (L1 radiance and L2 emissivity). This approach was implemented from May 15, 2019, through April 28, 2023. * Data acquisition gap: From February 8 to February 16, 2020, an ECOSTRESS instrument issue resulted in a data anomaly that created striping in band 4 (10.5 micron). These data products have been reprocessed and are available for download. No ECOSTRESS data were acquired on February 17, 2020, due to the instrument being in SAFEHOLD. Data acquired following the anomaly have not been affected. * Data acquisition: ECOSTRESS has now successfully returned to 5-band mode after being in 3-band mode since 2019. This feature was successfully enabled following a Data Processing Unit firmware update (version 4.1) to the payload on April 28, 2023. To better balance contiguous science data scene variables, 3-band collection is currently being interleaved with 5-band acquisitions over the orbital day/night periods.

ECO4ESIALEXIU

The ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) mission measures the temperature of plants to better understand how much water plants need and how they respond to stress. ECOSTRESS is attached to the International Space Station (ISS) and collects data globally between 52 degrees N and 52 degrees S latitudes. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) ECO4ESIALEXIU Version 1 data product provides the Evaporative Stress Index (ESI), which is computed from clear-sky estimates of the relative daily evapotranspiration (ET) fraction: ESI = ET/ETo, where ET is ETdaily from the ECOSTRESS Level 3 product and ETo is the reference ET. A description of the major components of the ECOSTRESS algorithm implemented in Version 1 of the Atmosphere Land Exchange Inverse (ALEXI) Disaggregation algorithm (DisALEXI) ESI code is provided in the Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document (ATBD). ESI applications include indicating agricultural drought and observing vegetation stress. The dis-ALEXI USDA ESI product is generated on a UTM grid at a spatial resolution of 30 meters. The ECO4ESIALEXIU Version 1 data product contains variables of daily evaporative stress index, evaporative stress index uncertainty, and associated quality flags. A low-resolution browse is also available showing daily ESI as a stretched image with a color ramp in JPEG format. Known Issues: Data acquisition gaps: ECOSTRESS was launched on June 29, 2018, and moved to autonomous science operations on August 20, 2018, following a successful in-orbit checkout period. On September 29, 2018, ECOSTRESS experienced an anomaly with its primary mass storage unit (MSU). ECOSTRESS has a primary and secondary MSU (A and B). On December 5, 2018, the instrument was switched to the secondary MSU and science operations resumed. On March 14, 2019, the secondary MSU experienced a similar anomaly temporarily halting science acquisitions. On May 15, 2019, a new data acquisition approach was implemented and science acquisitions resumed. To optimize the new acquisition approach TIR bands 2, 4 and 5 are being downloaded. The data products are as previously, except the bands not downloaded contain fill values (L1 radiance and L2 emissivity). This approach was implemented from May 15, 2019, through April 28, 2023. * Data acquisition gap: From February 8 to February 16, 2020, an ECOSTRESS instrument issue resulted in a data anomaly that created striping in band 4 (10.5 micron). These data products have been reprocessed and are available for download. No ECOSTRESS data were acquired on February 17, 2020, due to the instrument being in SAFEHOLD. Data acquired following the anomaly have not been affected. * Data acquisition: ECOSTRESS has now successfully returned to 5-band mode after being in 3-band mode since 2019. This feature was successfully enabled following a Data Processing Unit firmware update (version 4.1) to the payload on April 28, 2023. To better balance contiguous science data scene variables, 3-band collection is currently being interleaved with 5-band acquisitions over the orbital day/night periods.

ECO4ESIPTJPL

The ECO4ESIPTJPL Version 1 data product was decommissioned on September 30, 2025. Users are encouraged to use the ECO_L4T_ESI and ECO_L4G_ESI Version 2 data products. The ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) mission measures the temperature of plants to better understand how much water plants need and how they respond to stress. ECOSTRESS is attached to the International Space Station (ISS) and collects data globally between 52 degrees N and 52 degrees S latitudes. The ECO4ESIPTJPL Version 1 data product provides Evaporative Stress Index (ESI) data generated according to the Priestley-Taylor Jet Propulsion Laboratory (PT-JPL) algorithm described in the ECOSTRESS Level 4 (ESI_PT-JPL) Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document (ATBD). The ESI product is derived from the ratio of the Level 3 actual evapotranspiration (ET) to potential ET (PET) calculated as part of the algorithm. The ESI is an indicator of potential drought and plant water stress emphasizing areas of sub-optimal plant productivity. The ECO4ESIPTJPL Version 1 data product contains variables of ESI and PET. Known Issues: Data acquisition gaps: ECOSTRESS was launched on June 29, 2018, and moved to autonomous science operations on August 20, 2018, following a successful in-orbit checkout period. On September 29, 2018, ECOSTRESS experienced an anomaly with its primary mass storage unit (MSU). ECOSTRESS has a primary and secondary MSU (A and B). On December 5, 2018, the instrument was switched to the secondary MSU and science operations resumed. On March 14, 2019, the secondary MSU experienced a similar anomaly temporarily halting science acquisitions. On May 15, 2019, a new data acquisition approach was implemented and science acquisitions resumed. To optimize the new acquisition approach TIR bands 2, 4 and 5 are being downloaded. The data products are as previously, except the bands not downloaded contain fill values (L1 radiance and L2 emissivity). This approach was implemented from May 15, 2019, through April 28, 2023. * Data acquisition gap: From February 8 to February 16, 2020, an ECOSTRESS instrument issue resulted in a data anomaly that created striping in band 4 (10.5 micron). These data products have been reprocessed and are available for download. No ECOSTRESS data were acquired on February 17, 2020, due to the instrument being in SAFEHOLD. Data acquired following the anomaly have not been affected. * Data acquisition: ECOSTRESS has now successfully returned to 5-band mode after being in 3-band mode since 2019. This feature was successfully enabled following a Data Processing Unit firmware update (version 4.1) to the payload on April 28, 2023. To better balance contiguous science data scene variables, 3-band collection is currently being interleaved with 5-band acquisitions over the orbital day/night periods.

ECO3ETALEXI

The ECO3ETALEXI Version 1 data product was decommissioned on January 30th, 2026. Users are encouraged to use the ECO_L3T_ET_ALEXI and ECO_L3G_ET_ALEXI Version 2 data product(s). The ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) mission measures the temperature of plants to better understand how much water plants need and how they respond to stress. ECOSTRESS is attached to the International Space Station (ISS) and collects data globally between 52 degrees N and 52 degrees S latitudes. The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) ECO3ETALEXI Version 1 data product provides estimates of daily evapotranspiration (ET) using the ECOSTRESS Level 2 (L2) land surface temperature and emissivity (LST&E) product, along with ancillary meteorological data and remotely sensed vegetation cover information. The ECO3ETALEXI data product is derived using a physics-based surface energy balance (SEB) algorithm, the Atmosphere Land Exchange Inverse (ALEXI) Disaggregation algorithm (DisALEXI). Described in the Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document (ATBD), DisALEXI is based on spatial disaggregation of regional-scale fluxes from the ALEXI SEB model. There are many approaches for spatially mapping ET; however, SEB methods are favored for remote sensing retrievals based on land-surface temperature. ALEXI was initially developed for managed landscapes and has now been evaluated in comparison with micrometeorological flux tower observations over crop, forest, grassland, wetland, and semiarid desert sites. Applications include crop water use, crop phenology monitoring, and drought early warning or water stress detection. ECO3ETALEXI is available for CONUS at 70-meter (m) pixel resolution. The ECO3ETALEXI Version 1 data product contains variables of daily ET, ET uncertainty, and associated quality flags. A low-resolution browse is also available showing daily ET as a stretched image with a color ramp in JPEG format. Known Issues: Data acquisition gaps: ECOSTRESS was launched on June 29, 2018, and moved to autonomous science operations on August 20, 2018, following a successful in-orbit checkout period. On September 29, 2018, ECOSTRESS experienced an anomaly with its primary mass storage unit (MSU). ECOSTRESS has a primary and secondary MSU (A and B). On December 5, 2018, the instrument was switched to the secondary MSU and science operations resumed. On March 14, 2019, the secondary MSU experienced a similar anomaly, temporarily halting science acquisitions. On May 15, 2019, a new data acquisition approach was implemented, and science acquisitions resumed. To optimize the new acquisition approach, only TIR bands 2, 4, and 5 are being downloaded. The data products are the same as before, but the bands not downloaded contain fill values (L1 radiance and L2 emissivity). This approach was implemented from May 15, 2019, through April 28, 2023. * Data acquisition gap: From February 8 to February 16, 2020, an ECOSTRESS instrument issue resulted in a data anomaly that created striping in band 4 (10.5 micron). These data products have been reprocessed and are available for download. No ECOSTRESS data were acquired on February 17, 2020, due to the instrument being in SAFEHOLD. Data acquired following the anomaly have not been affected. * Data acquisition: ECOSTRESS has now successfully returned to 5-band mode after being in 3-band mode since 2019. This feature was successfully enabled following a Data Processing Unit firmware update (version 4.1) to the payload on April 28, 2023. To better balance contiguous science data scene variables, 3-band collection is currently being interleaved with 5-band acquisitions over the orbital day/night periods.

ECO3ETPTJPL

ECO3ETPTJPL Version 1 was deprecated on September 30, 2025. Users are encouraged to use the ECO_L3G_JET and ECO_L3T_JET Version 2 data products. The ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) mission measures the temperature of plants to better understand how much water plants need and how they respond to stress. ECOSTRESS is attached to the International Space Station (ISS) and collects data globally between 52 degrees N and 52 degrees S latitudes. ECO3ETPTJPL Version 1 is a Level 3 (L3) product that provides evapotranspiration (ET) generated from data acquired by the ECOSTRESS radiometer instrument according to the Priestly-Taylor Jet Propulsion Laboratory (PT-JPL) algorithm described in the Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document (ATBD). The ET product is generated from the Level 2 data products for surface temperature and emissivity, the Level 1 geolocation information, and a significant number of ancillary data inputs from other sources. ET is set by various controls, including radiative and atmospheric demand, and environmental sensitivity, productivity, vegetation physiology, and phenology. PT-JPL is best utilized for natural ecosystems. The L3 ET product is used for creating the Level 4 products, Evaporative Stress Index (ESI) and Water Use Efficiency (WUE). The ECO3ETPTJPL Version 1 data product contains variables of instantaneous ET, daily ET, canopy transpiration, soil evaporation, ET uncertainty, and interception evaporation. Known Issues: Data acquisition gaps: ECOSTRESS was launched on June 29, 2018, and moved to autonomous science operations on August 20, 2018, following a successful in-orbit checkout period. On September 29, 2018, ECOSTRESS experienced an anomaly with its primary mass storage unit (MSU). ECOSTRESS has a primary and secondary MSU (A and B). On December 5, 2018, the instrument was switched to the secondary MSU and science operations resumed. On March 14, 2019, the secondary MSU experienced a similar anomaly temporarily halting science acquisitions. On May 15, 2019, a new data acquisition approach was implemented and science acquisitions resumed. To optimize the new acquisition approach TIR bands 2, 4 and 5 are being downloaded. The data products are as previously, except the bands not downloaded contain fill values (L1 radiance and L2 emissivity). This approach was implemented from May 15, 2019, through April 28, 2023. * Data acquisition gap: From February 8 to February 16, 2020, an ECOSTRESS instrument issue resulted in a data anomaly that created striping in band 4 (10.5 micron). These data products have been reprocessed and are available for download. No ECOSTRESS data were acquired on February 17, 2020, due to the instrument being in SAFEHOLD. Data acquired following the anomaly have not been affected. * Data acquisition: ECOSTRESS has now successfully returned to 5-band mode after being in 3-band mode since 2019. This feature was successfully enabled following a Data Processing Unit firmware update (version 4.1) to the payload on April 28, 2023. To better balance contiguous science data scene variables, 3-band collection is currently being interleaved with 5-band acquisitions over the orbital day/night periods.

ECO1BGEO

The ECO1BGEO Version 1 data product was decommissioned on January 30, 2026. Users are encouraged to use the ECO_L1B_GEO Version 2 data product. The ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) mission measures the temperature of plants to better understand how much water plants need and how they respond to stress. ECOSTRESS is attached to the International Space Station (ISS) and collects data globally between 52 degrees N and 52 degrees S latitudes. The ECO1BGEO Version 1 data product provides the geolocation information for the radiance values retrieved in the ECO1BRAD Version 1 data product. The ECO1BGEO data product should be used to georeference the ECO1BRAD, ECO2CLD, ECO2LSTE, ECO3ANCQA, ECO3ETPTJPL, ECO4ESIPTJPL, and ECO4WUE data products. The geolocation processing corrects the ISS-reported ephemeris and attitude data by image matching with a global ortho-base derived from Landsat data, and then assigns latitude and longitude values to each of the Level 1 radiance pixels. When image matching is successful, the data are geolocated to better than 50 meter (m) accuracy. The ECO1BGEO data product is provided as swath data. The ECO1BGEO data product contains data variables for latitude and longitude values, solar and view geometry information, surface height, and the fraction of pixel on land versus water. Known Issues: Geolocation accuracy: In cases where scenes were not successfully matched with the ortho-base, the geolocation error is significantly larger, with the worst-case geolocation error for uncorrected data being at 7 kilometers (km). Within the metadata of the ECO1BGEO file, if the field "L1GEOMetadata/OrbitCorrectionPerformed" is "True," the data was corrected, and geolocation accuracy should be better than 50 m. If this is "False," then the data was processed without correcting the geolocation and will have up to 7 km geolocation error. * Data acquisition gap: ECOSTRESS was launched on June 29, 2018, and moved to autonomous science operations on August 20, 2018, following a successful in-orbit checkout period. On September 29, 2018, ECOSTRESS experienced an anomaly with its primary mass storage unit (MSU). ECOSTRESS has a primary and secondary MSU (A and B). On December 5, 2018, the instrument was switched to the secondary MSU and science operations resumed. On March 14, 2019, the secondary MSU experienced a similar anomaly temporarily halting science acquisitions. On May 15, 2019, a new data acquisition approach was implemented and science acquisitions resumed. To optimize the new acquisition approach TIR bands 2, 4 and 5 are being downloaded. The data products are as previously, except the bands not downloaded contain fill values (L1 radiance and L2 emissivity). This approach was implemented from May 15, 2019, through April 28, 2023. * Data acquisition gap: From February 8 to February 16, 2020, an ECOSTRESS instrument issue resulted in a data anomaly that created striping in band 4 (10.5 micron). These data products have been reprocessed and are available for download. No ECOSTRESS data were acquired on February 17, 2020, due to the instrument being in SAFEHOLD. Data acquired following the anomaly have not been affected. * Data acquisition: ECOSTRESS has now successfully returned to 5-band mode after being in 3-band mode since 2019. This feature was successfully enabled following a Data Processing Unit firmware update (version 4.1) to the payload on April 28, 2023. To better balance contiguous science data scene variables, 3-band collection is currently being interleaved with 5-band acquisitions over the orbital day/night periods.

ECO_L2G_CLOUD

The ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) mission measures the temperature of plants to better understand how much water plants need and how they respond to stress. ECOSTRESS is attached to the International Space Station (ISS) and collects data globally between 52° N and 52° S latitudes. The ECOSTRESS Gridded Cloud Mask Instantaneous L2 Global 70 m (ECO_L2G_CLOUD) Version 2 data product is derived using a single-channel Bayesian cloud threshold with a look-up-table (LUT) approach. The ECO_L2G_CLOUD product provides a cloud mask that can be used to determine cloud cover for accurate land surface temperature and evapotranspiration estimation. This data product is a gridded version of the ECO_L2_CLOUD Version 2 product that was resampled using nearest neighbor, projected to a globally snapped 0.0006° grid, and repackaged as the ECO_L2G_CLOUD Version 2 data product. The ECO_L2G_CLOUD Version 2 data product contains two cloud mask layers: cloud confidence and final cloud mask. Information on how to interpret the cloud confidence and cloud mask layers is provided in Table 7 of the ECO_L2_CLOUD Version 2 User Guide. Known Issues: Data acquisition gap: ECOSTRESS was launched on June 29, 2018, and moved to autonomous science operations on August 20, 2018, following a successful in-orbit checkout period. On September 29, 2018, ECOSTRESS experienced an anomaly with its primary mass storage unit (MSU). ECOSTRESS has a primary and secondary MSU (A and B). On December 5, 2018, the instrument was switched to the secondary MSU and science operations resumed. On March 14, 2019, the secondary MSU experienced a similar anomaly, temporarily halting science acquisitions. On May 15, 2019, a new data acquisition approach was implemented, and science acquisitions resumed. To optimize the new acquisition approach TIR bands 2, 4, and 5 are being downloaded. The data products are as previously, except the bands not downloaded contain fill values (L1 radiance and L2 emissivity). This approach was implemented from May 15, 2019, through April 28, 2023. * Data acquisition gap: From February 8 to February 16, 2020, an ECOSTRESS instrument issue resulted in a data anomaly that created striping in band 4 (10.5 micron). These data products have been reprocessed and are available for download. No ECOSTRESS data were acquired on February 17, 2020, due to the instrument being in SAFEHOLD. Data acquired following the anomaly have not been affected. * Data acquisition: ECOSTRESS has now successfully returned to 5-band mode after being in 3-band mode since 2019. This feature was successfully enabled following a Data Processing Unit firmware update (version 4.1) to the payload on April 28, 2023. To better balance contiguous science data scene variables, 3-band collection is currently being interleaved with 5-band acquisitions over the orbital day/night periods. * Solar Array Obstruction: Some ECOSTRESS scenes may be affected by solar array obstructions from the International Space Station (ISS), potentially impacting data quality of obstructed pixels. The 'FieldOfViewObstruction' metadata field is included in all Version 2 products to indicate possible obstructions: * Before October 24, 2024 (orbits prior to 35724): The field is present but was not populated and does not reliably identify affected scenes. * On or after October 24, 2024 (starting with orbit 35724): The field is populated and generally accurate, except for late December 2024, when a temporary processing error may have caused false positives. * A list of scenes confirmed to be affected by obstructions is available and is recommended for verifying historical data (before October 24, 2024) and scenes from late December 2024. * The ISS native pointing information is coarse relative to ECOSTRESS pixels, so ECOSTRESS geolocation is improved through image matching with a basemap. Metadata in the L1B_GEO file shows the success of this geolocation improvement, using categorizations "best", "good", "suspect", and "poor". We recommend that users use only "best" and "good" scenes for evaluations where geolocation is important (e.g., comparison to field sites). For some scenes, this metadata is not reflected in the higher-level products (e.g., land surface temperature, evapotranspiration, etc.). While this metadata is always available in the geolocation product, to save users additional download, we have produced a summary text file that includes the geolocation quality flags for all scenes from launch to present. At a later date, all higher-level products will reflect the geolocation quality flag correctly (the field name is GeolocationAccuracyQA). *During the time period of May 15th, 2025, through July 1st, 2025, ECOSTRESS data was noisier than expected. Cycling the payload resolved the issue, but researchers should use all levels of ECOSTRESS data acquired during this time period with caution.

ECO3ANCQA

The ECO3ANCQA Version 1 data product was decommissioned on September 30, 2025. The ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) mission measures the temperature of plants to better understand how much water plants need and how they respond to stress. ECOSTRESS is attached to the International Space Station (ISS) and collects data globally between 52 degrees N and 52 degrees S latitudes. The ECO3ANCQA Version 1 is a Level 3 (L3) product that provides Quality Assessment (QA) fields for all ancillary data used in L3 and Level 4 (L4) products generated by Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). No quality flags are generated for the L3 or L4 products. Instead, the quality flags of the source data products are resampled by nearest neighbor onto the geolocation of the ECOSTRESS scene. A quality flag array for each input dataset, when available, is collected into the combined QA product. The ECO3ANCQA Version 1 data product contains layers of quality flags for ECOSTRESS cloud mask, Landsat 8, land cover type, albedo, MODIS Terra aerosol, MODIS Terra Cloud 1 km, MODIS Terra Cloud 5 km, MODIS Terra atmospheric profile, vegetation indices, MODIS Terra gross primary productivity, and MODIS water mask. Known Issues: Data acquisition gaps: ECOSTRESS was launched on June 29, 2018, and moved to autonomous science operations on August 20, 2018, following a successful in-orbit checkout period. On September 29, 2018, ECOSTRESS experienced an anomaly with its primary mass storage unit (MSU). ECOSTRESS has a primary and secondary MSU (A and B). On December 5, 2018, the instrument was switched to the secondary MSU and science operations resumed. On March 14, 2019, the secondary MSU experienced a similar anomaly temporarily halting science acquisitions. On May 15, 2019, a new data acquisition approach was implemented and science acquisitions resumed. To optimize the new acquisition approach TIR bands 2, 4 and 5 are being downloaded. The data products are as previously, except the bands not downloaded contain fill values (L1 radiance and L2 emissivity). This approach was implemented from May 15, 2019, through April 28, 2023. * Data acquisition gap: From February 8 to February 16, 2020, an ECOSTRESS instrument issue resulted in a data anomaly that created striping in band 4 (10.5 micron). These data products have been reprocessed and are available for download. No ECOSTRESS data were acquired on February 17, 2020, due to the instrument being in SAFEHOLD. Data acquired following the anomaly have not been affected. * Data acquisition: ECOSTRESS has now successfully returned to 5-band mode after being in 3-band mode since 2019. This feature was successfully enabled following a Data Processing Unit firmware update (version 4.1) to the payload on April 28, 2023. To better balance contiguous science data scene variables, 3-band collection is currently being interleaved with 5-band acquisitions over the orbital day/night periods.

ECO2LSTE

The ECO2LSTE Version 1 data product was decommissioned on May 21, 2025. Users are encouraged to use the ECO_L2T_LSTE Version 2 and ECO_L2G_LSTE Version 2 data products. The ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) mission measures the temperature of plants to better understand how much water plants need and how they respond to stress. ECOSTRESS is attached to the International Space Station (ISS) and collects data globally between 52 degrees N and 52 degrees S latitudes. The ECO2LSTE Version 1 data product provides atmospherically corrected land surface temperature and emissivity (LST&E) values derived from five thermal infrared (TIR) bands. The ECO2LSTE data product was derived using a physics-based Temperature and Emissivity Separation (TES) algorithm. The ECO2LSTE is provided as swath data and has a spatial resolution of 70 meters (m). The corresponding ECO1BGEO data product is required to georeference the ECO2LSTE data product. The ECO2LSTE Version 1 data product contains variables of LST, emissivity for bands 1 through 5, quality control for LST&E, LST error, emissivity error for bands 1 through 5, wideband emissivity, and Precipitable Water Vapor (PWV). Known Issues: Data acquisition gap: ECOSTRESS was launched on June 29, 2018, and moved to autonomous science operations on August 20, 2018, following a successful in-orbit checkout period. On September 29, 2018, ECOSTRESS experienced an anomaly with its primary mass storage unit (MSU). ECOSTRESS has a primary and secondary MSU (A and B). On December 5, 2018, the instrument was switched to the secondary MSU and science operations resumed. On March 14, 2019, the secondary MSU experienced a similar anomaly temporarily halting science acquisitions. On May 15, 2019, a new data acquisition approach was implemented and science acquisitions resumed. To optimize the new acquisition approach TIR bands 2, 4 and 5 are being downloaded. The data products are as previously, except the bands not downloaded contain fill values (L1 radiance and L2 emissivity). This approach was implemented from May 15, 2019, through April 28, 2023. * Data acquisition gap: From February 8 to February 16, 2020, an ECOSTRESS instrument issue resulted in a data anomaly that created striping in band 4 (10.5 micron). These data products have been reprocessed and are available for download. No ECOSTRESS data were acquired on February 17, 2020, due to the instrument being in SAFEHOLD. Data acquired following the anomaly have not been affected. * Data acquisition: ECOSTRESS has now successfully returned to 5-band mode after being in 3-band mode since 2019. This feature was successfully enabled following a Data Processing Unit firmware update (version 4.1) to the payload on April 28, 2023. To better balance contiguous science data scene variables, 3-band collection is currently being interleaved with 5-band acquisitions over the orbital day/night periods.

ECO1BMAPRAD

The ECO1BMAPRAD Version 1 data product was decommissioned on February 14, 2025. Users are encouraged to use the ECO_L1CT_RAD Version 2 and ECO_L1CG_RAD Version 2 data products. The ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) mission measures the temperature of plants to better understand how much water plants need and how they respond to stress. ECOSTRESS is attached to the International Space Station (ISS) and collects data globally between 52 degrees N and 52 degrees S latitudes. A map of the acquisition coverage can be found in Figure 2 on the ECOSTRESS website. The ECO1BMAPRAD Version 1 data product combines the at-sensor calibrated radiance values retrieved for the ECO1BRAD data product and the geolocation information provided in the ECO1BGEO data product to produce a geotagged, resampled radiance product. The ECO1BMAPRAD data product is produced as a map registered product that is in a rotated geographic projection with a spatial resolution of 70 meters (m). The ECO1BMAPRAD data product accounts for the overlap and variable pixel size in the ECO1BRAD data product. The ECO1BMAPRAD Version 1 data product contains data variables including the radiance values for the five thermal infrared (TIR) bands, digital number (DN) values for the shortwave infrared (SWIR) band, associated data quality indicators, latitude and longitude values, solar and view geometry information, and surface height. Known Issues: Data acquisition gap: ECOSTRESS was launched on June 29, 2018, and moved to autonomous science operations on August 20, 2018, following a successful in-orbit checkout period. On September 29, 2018, ECOSTRESS experienced an anomaly with its primary mass storage unit (MSU). ECOSTRESS has a primary and secondary MSU (A and B). On December 5, 2018, the instrument was switched to the secondary MSU and science operations resumed. On March 14, 2019, the secondary MSU experienced a similar anomaly temporarily halting science acquisitions. On May 15, 2019, a new data acquisition approach was implemented and science acquisitions resumed. To optimize the new acquisition approach TIR bands 2, 4 and 5 are being downloaded. The data products are as previously, except the bands not downloaded contain fill values (L1 radiance and L2 emissivity). This approach was implemented from May 15, 2019, through April 28, 2023. * Data acquisition gap: From February 8 to February 16, 2020, an ECOSTRESS instrument issue resulted in a data anomaly that created striping in band 4 (10.5 micron). These data products have been reprocessed and are available for download. No ECOSTRESS data were acquired on February 17, 2020, due to the instrument being in SAFEHOLD. Data acquired following the anomaly have not been affected. * Resampled data: The data has been resampled, so users interested in working with data closest to that acquired by the instrument may want to work with the swath products. * Missing scan data: During testing, an instrument artifact was encountered in ECOSTRESS bands 1 and 5, resulting in missing values. A machine learning algorithm has been applied to interpolate missing values. For more information on the missing scan filling techniques and outcomes, see Section 3.3.2 of the User Guide. * Cold bias: ECOSTRESS Level-1 Radiance data shows high correlation with in-situ ground measurements (R2 = 0.99 in all bands). Currently, ECOSTRESS has a cold bias of approximately 0.7 Kelvin (K), which will be corrected through calibration in future data releases. * Data acquisition: ECOSTRESS has now successfully returned to 5-band mode after being in 3-band mode since 2019. This feature was successfully enabled following a Data Processing Unit firmware update (version 4.1) to the payload on April 28, 2023. To better balance contiguous science data scene variables, 3-band collection is currently being interleaved with 5-band acquisitions over the orbital day/night periods.

ECO4WUE

The ECO4WUE Version 1 data product was deprecated on September 30, 2025. Users are encouraged to use the ECO_L4T_WUE and ECO_L4G_WUE Version 2 data products. The ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station (ECOSTRESS) mission measures the temperature of plants to better understand how much water plants need and how they respond to stress. ECOSTRESS is attached to the International Space Station (ISS) and collects data globally between 52 degrees N and 52 degrees S latitudes. The ECO4WUE Version 1 data product provides Water Use Efficiency (WUE) data generated according to the Priestley-Taylor Jet Propulsion Laboratory (PT-JPL) algorithm described in the ECOSTRESS Level 4 WUE Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document (ATBD). WUE is the ratio of carbon stored by plants to water evaporated by plants. This ratio is given as grams of carbon stored per kilogram of water evaporated over the course of the day from sunrise to sunset on the day when the ECOSTRESS granule was acquired. The ECO4WUE Version 1 data product contains a single variable of water use efficiency. Known Issues: Data acquisition gaps: ECOSTRESS was launched on June 29, 2018, and moved to autonomous science operations on August 20, 2018, following a successful in-orbit checkout period. On September 29, 2018, ECOSTRESS experienced an anomaly with its primary mass storage unit (MSU). ECOSTRESS has a primary and secondary MSU (A and B). On December 5, 2018, the instrument was switched to the secondary MSU and science operations resumed. On March 14, 2019, the secondary MSU experienced a similar anomaly temporarily halting science acquisitions. On May 15, 2019, a new data acquisition approach was implemented and science acquisitions resumed. To optimize the new acquisition approach TIR bands 2, 4 and 5 are being downloaded. The data products are as previously, except the bands not downloaded contain fill values (L1 radiance and L2 emissivity). This approach was implemented from May 15, 2019, through April 28, 2023. * Data acquisition gap: From February 8 to February 16, 2020, an ECOSTRESS instrument issue resulted in a data anomaly that created striping in band 4 (10.5 micron). These data products have been reprocessed and are available for download. No ECOSTRESS data were acquired on February 17, 2020, due to the instrument being in SAFEHOLD. Data acquired following the anomaly have not been affected. * Data acquisition: ECOSTRESS has now successfully returned to 5-band mode after being in 3-band mode since 2019. This feature was successfully enabled following a Data Processing Unit firmware update (version 4.1) to the payload on April 28, 2023. To better balance contiguous science data scene variables, 3-band collection is currently being interleaved with 5-band acquisitions over the orbital day/night periods.

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NASA ECOSTRESS Project was accessed on DATE from https://registry.opendata.aws/nasa-ecostress.