On January 16, 2026, the ASTER Thermal Infrared (TIR) instrument was permanently turned off due to power limitations on the Terra spacecraft. However, ASTER’s Visible and Near Infrared (VNIR) instrument operations, briefly disrupted during the TIR turn-off process, resumed on February 9, 2026. More information is available in this recently released NASA Science News Brief.
The ASTER products affected are listed in the Referenced Datasets section below. Note that ASTER Level 2 data products (AST_05, AST_08, and AST_09T) comprised of TIR-only bands will no longer be produced. The remaining ASTER data products (AST_L1A, AST_L1AE, AST_L1B, AST_L1BE, AST_L1T, AST_07, AST_07XT, AST_09, AST_09XT, and AST14DEM) will continue to be produced for VNIR-only observations.
Explore and access ASTER Version 4 data products using NASA’s Earthdata Search. Please contact Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC) User Services with any questions.