Recent Advances In Airborne Terrestrial Remote Sensing With The Nasa Airborne Visible/infrared Imaging Spectrometer (aviris), Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (sar), And Thermal Infrared Multispectral Scanner (tims)

Significant progress in terrestrial remote sensing from the air has been made with three NASA-developed sensors that collectively cover the solar-reflected, thermal infrared, and microwave regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. These sensors are the airborne visible/infrared imaging spectrometer (AVIRIS), the thermal infrared mapping spectrometer (TIMS) and the airborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR), respectively. AVIRIS and SAR underwent extensive in-flight engineering testing in 1987 and 1988 and are scheduled to become operational in 1989. TIMS has been in operation for several years. These sensors are described.