Highlights What are the main findings? An operational, year-round automated ground-based vicarious calibration system for thermal infrared sensors was deployed at three Gobi pseudo-invariant sites, establishing a traceable surface-atmosphere-sensor radiometric chain. Applied to GF-5A WTI, the method yields band- and gain-specific linear calibration coefficients with stable radiometric response and brightness-temperature errors within mission requirements, as verified by independent on-orbit validation. What are the implications of the main findings? The Gobi-based network demonstrates that autonomous ground stations can provide routine, low-manpower on-orbit radiometric calibration and long-term stability monitoring for high-resolution thermal infrared missions such as GF-5A WTI. The framework provides a scalable blueprint for arid-region calibration networks, enabling multi-gain consistency checks, robust vicarious calibration, and more reliable land-surface-temperature and related thermal infrared products.Highlights What are the main findings? An operational, year-round automated ground-based vicarious calibration system for thermal infrared sensors was deployed at three Gobi pseudo-invariant sites, establishing a traceable surface-atmosphere-sensor radiometric chain. Applied to GF-5A WTI, the method yields band- and gain-specific linear calibration coefficients with stable radiometric response and brightness-temperature errors within mission requirements, as verified by independent on-orbit validation. What are the implications of the main findings? The Gobi-based network demonstrates that autonomous ground stations can provide routine, low-manpower on-orbit radiometric calibration and long-term stability monitoring for high-resolution thermal infrared missions such as GF-5A WTI. The framework provides a scalable blueprint for arid-region calibration networks, enabling multi-gain consistency checks, robust vicarious calibration, and more reliable land-surface-temperature and related thermal infrared products.Abstract High-resolution TIR missions require sustained and well-characterized radiometric accuracy to support applications such as land surface temperature retrieval, drought monitoring, and surface energy budget analysis. To address this need, we develop an operational and automated ground-based vicarious radiometric calibration framework for TIR sensors and demonstrate its performance using the Wide-swath Thermal Infrared Imager (WTI) onboard Gaofen-5 01A (GF-5A). Three arid Gobi calibration sites were selected by integrating Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) cloud products, Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM)-derived topography, and WTI-based radiometric uniformity metrics to ensure low cloud cover, flat terrain, and high spatial homogeneity. Automated ground stations deployed at Golmud, Dachaidan, and Dunhuang have continuously recorded 1 min contact surface temperature since October 2023. Field-measured emissivity spectra, Integrated Global Radiosonde Archive (IGRA) radiosonde profiles, and MODTRAN (MODerate resolution atmospheric TRANsmission) v5.2 simulations were combined to compute top-of-atmosphere (TOA) radiances, which were subsequently collocated with WTI imagery. After data screening and gain-stratified regression, linear calibration coefficients were derived for each TIR band. Based on 189 scenes from February-July 2024, all four bands exhibit strong linearity (R-squared greater than 0.979). Validation using 45 independent scenes yields a mean brightness-temperature root-mean-square error (RMSE) of 0.67 K. A full radiometric-chain uncertainty budget-including contact temperature, emissivity, atmospheric profiles, and radiative transfer modeling-results in a combined standard uncertainty of 1.41 K. The proposed framework provides a low-maintenance, traceable, and high-frequency solution for the long-term on-orbit radiometric calibration of GF-5A WTI and establishes a reproducible pathway for future TIR missions requiring sustained calibration stability.