Barry Rice

- doing science on a terrestrial planet -



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Instrument profile: AVIRIS--Airborne Visible InfraRed Imaging Spectrometer

AVIRIS is a hyperspectral device that flies on either low-altitude missions (Twin Otter turboprop at an altitude of approximately 4 km, 130km/h) or high-altitude missions (modified U2 NASA ER-2 jet at an altitude of approximately 15-20 km, 730 km/h). The mission emphasis of this device is to obtain accurate, quantitative characterizations of surface composition and features. AVIRIS is operated by NASA (USA), and data are still being acquired.

Obtaining AVIRIS data is not trivial. A proposal must be submitted for review, and each proposal's merits are determined by panel review. Exact timing of data harvesting cannot be predicted. Archived data from previous observations may also be purchased.

Usefulness to land managers
AVIRIS data has great potential for land managers, especially those seeking to classify vegetation structure on a one-time basis. However, because of the significant time-overhead in terms of submitting proposal, AVIRIS is not a feasible option for those who would like to use remote sensing as a convenient way to obtain imagery on short time scales, or to repeat imagery to look for seasonal changes.

Costs and Contacts
http://aviris.jpl.nasa.gov--AVIRIS home page, for research proposals.
New data requests cost about $70,000 ($64,000+$6000 per flight hour of the ER-2)
Archived (old) data may be purchased for $500 per flight line.

Sample images


True Color/Pasadena

Quicklook/Mauna Kea


Useful Web Sites
http://speclab.cr.usgs.gov/aboutimsp.html--AVIRIS image reduction tutorial

Technical Specs

Spectral data characteristics:
# of channels (bands): 224
Bandwidth/channel: 10 nm
Total spectral coverage: 380-2500 nm

Areal data characteristics:
Mission type Pixel size Image swath width Image swath length
Low-Altitude 4 m square 1.9 km 10 km
High-Altitude 20 m square 11 km 100 km


References
http://aviris.jpl.nasa.gov (and subpages)--accessed 15 Sept. 2004

 
 

4 February 2009