Overview of AVIRIS

AVIRIS is an acronym for the Airborne Visible InfraRed Imaging Spectrometer. AVIRIS is a world class instrument in the realm of Earth Remote Sensing. It is a unique optical sensor that delivers calibrated images of the upwelling spectral radiance in 224 contiguous spectral channels (also called bands) with wavelengths from 400 to 2500 nanometers (nm). The instrument flies aboard a NASA ER-2 airplane (a U2 plane modified for increased performance) at approximately 20 km above sea level, at about 730 km/hr. AVIRIS has flown all across the US, plus Canada and Europe.

The science objectives of the AVIRIS project are broad. In a nutshell, the main objective is to identify, measure, and monitor constituents of the Earth's surface and atmosphere based on molecular absorption and particle scattering signatures. Research with AVIRIS is dominantly directed towards understanding processes related to the global environment and climate change.
AVIRIS research areas include:

Ecology
Oceanography
Geology
Snow hydrology
Cloud and atmospheric studies

The role of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the AVIRIS project is threefold:

   1. Principal investigator
   2. Instrument in-house design, fabrication, testing, and calibration
   3. Ground processing algorithms, software development, and data distributions

Jet Propulsion Laboratory
California Institute of Technology
Pasadena, California USA

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Contact info:
Ordering AVIRIS Data:
avorders@makalu.jpl.nasa.gov
Questions about AVIRIS:
av_tech@makalu.jpl.nasa.gov
AVIRIS Experiment Coordinator:
avec@jpl.nasa.gov
Web design-Sarah Lundeen:
Sarah.R.Lundeen@jpl.nasa.gov
Copyright © 2000 Caltech
Last updated 01.26.01