The Joint Cyprus Flight Campaign of Eratosthenes CoE and DLR (CERAD) of 2023

Abstract

In October 2023, the Eratosthenes Center of Excellence (CoE) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) conducted the joint Cyprus Flight Campaign, named CERAD. Within the framework of CERAD, twelve selected test areas in Cyprus were covered in five days by the DLR research aircraft Do228 D-CFFU, equipped with two camera systems, namely, 3K and HySpex. The 3K camera system is an in-house development of DLRs Remote Sensing Institute consisting of three Canon frame cameras for high resolution mapping and 3D analysis, while the HySpex sensor is a hyperspectral push-broom scanner delivering over 900 narrow spectral bands in the VNIR and SWIR region. In parallel also scenes from the spaceborne sensors EnMap and DESIS were acquired in this week over some test areas together with ground based spectroscopy for cross calibration of the hyperspectral sensors. The measurements are intended to provide information on how climate change is altering agriculture in arid regions such as Cyprus, and how urban temperatures are developing there. In addition, the recordings will be used to find clues to undiscovered archaeological sites. The processing of the nearly 91 GB of 3K images and about 6.5 TB of HySpex images will be performed using the DLR processing chain system CATENA within the framework of the EXCELSIOR project, supported by the project "ERATOSTHENES: Excellence Research Centre for Earth Surveillance and Space-Based Monitoring of the Environment-EXCELSIOR" (https://excelsior2020.eu/) that has received funding from the European Unions Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No 857510 (Call: WIDESPREAD-01-2018-2019 Teaming Phase 2), the Government of the Republic of Cyprus through the Directorate General for European Programmes, Coordination and Development, and the Cyprus University of Technology.