The advanced spaceborne thermal emission and reflection radiometer (ASTER) is a multi- spectral imaging radiometer with 14 spectral bands, 60 km imaging swath, and 15 - 90 m spatial resolutions. Since operation of the ASTER instrument will be affected by various constraints such as duty cycle and pointing frequencies, it is necessary to optimize the operation scenario for efficient data acquisition during the 6 year mission period. In addition, many possible combinations of the observation modes of the three ASTER subsystems (VNIR, SWIR, and TIR), which can be operated independently with different gain setting for each spectral band, complicate the data acquisition scenario. There are four data acquisition categories; local observations, regional monitoring, global mapping, and engineering team requests. Local observations will be made in response to data acquisition requests (DARs) from individual investigators. Regional monitoring and global mapping will be scheduled in response to science team acquisition requests (STARs). Prioritization of data acquisition requests will be done using the factors such as user status and observation categories. Three types of schedules; long term schedule (LTS), short term schedule (STS), and one day schedule (ODS) will be generated for ASTER observation activities.