Status and Perspectives of the hyperspectral DESIS mission

Abstract

The DLR Earth Sensing Imaging Spectrometer (DESIS) is a space-based instrument installed on the International Space Station (ISS) and operating since September, 2018. It is a collaboration mission between the German Aerospace Center (DLR) responsible for the development of the instrument and the data processing software and the US company Teledyne Brown Engineering (TBE) that has provided the Multi-User System for Earth Sensing (MUSES) platform. Since the start of the operation of DESIS, the data quality is constantly evaluated. In a continuous monitoring process, the data quality is controlled and, if necessary, the calibration algorithms and tables are adjusted. This is essential for the later data exploitation by scientists. Since the start of the operation phase almost 55.000 products are available in the DESIS data archive of TBE (@ Jan. 2021). This corresponds to ~10% of the land surface of the Earth. Meanwhile, a wide range of scientific users worldwide have requested DESIS data for their specific areas of interest such as water resource, ocean and coastal applications, geology and biodiversity. The presentation will give an overview about the DESIS mission, data quality control, data access, and examples and perspectives on the scientific exploitation of the mission. Further, the potential collaboration with PRISMA for the CHIME mission and other initiatives will be presented.