DLR Earth Sensing Imaging Spectrometer (DESIS)

Since 2018, the DLR Earth Sensing Imaging Spectrometer (DESIS) operates onboard the International Space Station (ISS). DESIS has acquired data worldwide for both scientific and commercial users. The continuously growing data archive supports methodical and application developments for the monitoring of the Earth’s surface. Additionally, the DESIS data archive serves as a database for recent and upcoming hyperspectral Earth-observing missions such as ESA’s CHIME. It enables long-term analysis of physical phenomena and land use changes by providing high-resolution data spanning an extended temporal range for the monitoring of a site of interest. The hyperspectral instrument DESIS (DLR Earth Sensing Imaging Spectrometer) is one of four possible payloads of MUSES (Multi-User System for Earth Sensing), which is mounted on the International Space Station (ISS).

The mission is based on a cooperation between Teledyne Brown Engineering (TBE) located in Huntsville, Alabama, USA, and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Germany. TBE provided the MUSES platform, where DESIS is installed, and the infrastructure for operation, data tasking and commercial data distribution. DLR developed and built the instrument, along with the development of the associated software for data processing and delivery. Additionally, DLR is responsible for the scientific exploitation of the mission.

The DESIS Level 2A collection contains standardized (CEOS Analysis Ready Data) and systematically processed bottom of atmosphere reflectance data generated using an algorithm for the atmospheric correction of DESIS data over land surfaces using the PACO code (de los Reyes et al., 2020). The DESIS data provides reflectance values between 400nm and 1000nm with a spatial resolution of about 30 m and spectral resolution of 10.2 nm (factor 4 spectrally binned with respect to default DESIS data). The dataset is provided in cloud-optimized GeoTIFF format for direct access and download. The full resolution data (2.55 nm) and all other available processing level (L1B, L1C) are available at the EOWEB Geoportal ^DLR.

The availability of DESIS data can be checked via access to private STAC Collection. Due to the restriced use of the data only for DESIS-PIs, the data are only available via private container and private STAC Collection. For the usage of the data, the user license must be accepted. Link to the data license term can be found here. An example how to access restricted data and accept its user license can be found in the terrapi explanation.

Instrument: Hyperspectral Imaging Spectrometer

Spatial Resolution: 30 m

Radiometric Resolution: 60 spectral channels (400 nm - 1000 nm) combined with spectral bandwidth of 10.2 nm

Temporal Resolution: 30.08.2018 - present

Geographical Coverage: 55°N - 52°S

Data Source: DLR

Link: https://www.dlr.de/de/eoc/forschung-transfer/projekte-und-missionen/desis

Product Specification: DESIS Data Product Specifications v1.3 (DESIS-DLR-ICD-002)

Data Use Guidelines: https://geoservice.dlr.de/resources/licenses/desis/DESIS_License_Agreement_for_Scientific_Use.pdf

Citation: German Aerospace Center (DLR) (2019): DESIS - Hyperspectral Images - Global. https://doi.org/10.15489/hxom21uqeo90