JPSS-2 VIIRS Day-Night Band pre-launch characterization

The JPSS-2 VIIRS instrument much like its predecessors JPSS-1 VIIRS (now renamed NOAA-20) and S-NPP VIIRS has an innovative three gain stage Day-Night Band (DNB) will provide high quality imagery of the Earth over a wide range of illumination conditions. This band uses a set of four CCDs and 32 different aggregation modes of time-delay integration and sub-pixel aggregation to achieve high SNR in low light conditions and maintain roughly constant spatial resolution across scan. In support of at launch readiness, JPSS-2 VIIRS DNB has undergone a series of prelaunch tests to characterize its spatial, radiometric, spectral, and functional performance at the instrument level and additional planned tests once integration with the spacecraft is complete. The DNB radiometric measurements were completed in October 2017 at the instrument level by Raytheon Company and subsequently analyzed by both vendor and government teams. These analyses form the basis of showing compliance with the sensor design specifications as well as the ability of the DNB to produce high quality imagery and radiometry similar to the first two missions. Presented in this work is the radiometric and spectral performance of the DNB including dynamic range, sensitivity, radiometric uncertainty and non-linearity along with a discussion of the potential impact to on-orbit calibration and SDR performance.