High Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (HIRIS): Science and Instrument

The High Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (HIRIS) is a facility instrument slated for flight on the second of the EOS-A series of platforms. HIRIS is designed to acquire 24-km wide, 30-m pixel images in 192 spectral bands simultaneously in the 0.4-2.45-micrometer wavelength region. With pointing mirrors it can sample any place on Earth, except the poles, every two days. HIRIS operates at the intermediate scale between the human and the global and therefore links studies of Earth surface processes to global monitoring carried out by lower-resolution instruments. So far, over 50 science data products from HIRIS images have been identified in the fields of atmospheric gases, clouds, snow and ice, water, vegetation, and rocks and soils. The key attribute of imaging spectrometry that makes it possible to derive quantitative information from the data is the large number of contiguous spectral bands. Therefore spectrum matching techniques can be applied. Such techniques are not possible with present-day, multispectral scanner data.