Imaging spectroscopy from an airborne platform brings a lot of advantages. One of which is the ability to cover larger areas compared to ground measurements and the ability to simulate and validate satellite images.
APEX, the airborne imaging spectrometer developed for ESA and operated by a Swiss Belgian consortium, RSL (University of Zurich) and VITO Remote Sensing, reaches its end of life after 10 years of operations. APEX supported more than 100 research projects in 15 countries in Europe.
RSL and the Swiss ARES consortium are preparing now for the APEX successor, CWIS-II, and VITO Remote Sensing recently started the developments of a new data processing infrastructure for CWIS-II.
To prepare the research community for CWIS-II, RSL is organizing AVIRIS NG (predecessor of CWIS-II) flights all over Europe. The campaign is active nowadays and is intended to finish before the end of July.
AVIRIS NG (Airborne Visible-Infrared Spectrometer Next Generation) is a state of the art imaging spectrometer that records the reflected sunlight in the wavelength range from 380-2510 nm with a spatial sampling between 0.6-9.0 m, depending on the flight height and aircraft used.
AVIRIS NG data will become openly available to the public later on, at the data products portal.
This AVIRIS NG Europe campaign is organized by RSL in support of ESA to contribute to the Copernicus CHIME mission developments and to support 3rd party mission targets. The actual status of the AVIRIS NG Europe campaign can be followed on Twitter.