A radiative transfer model for atmospheric transmission from target to satellite with geodetic coordinates

A radiative transfer model named TSG (atmospheric transmission from Target to Satellite with Geodetic coordinates) was proposed. Compared with MODTRAN, TSG modifies satellite altitude to 300–36,000 km, geodetic coordinates of target and satellite can be input together in each calculation, zenith and azimuth angle are automatically calculated according to geodetic coordinates of target and satellite and Greenwich Time. Atmospheric transmissions from target to satellite were calculated and analyzed by TSG. And a series of different conditions were used in TSG validation, validation results show that relative differences of average transmittance and integrated radiance between TSG and MODTRAN are less than 1% and 5% in 2000–3000 cm−1, and are less than 8% and 7% in 3000–4000 cm−1, respectively. TSG has good computation accuracy, and it is much more convenient than MODTRAN in calculating atmospheric transmission from target to satellite with geodetic coordinates. The results have important significance in target detecting, tracking and recognition.