MASTER Airborne Multispectral Imagery of Western US

MASTER airborne sensor data includes Level 1B georeferenced multispectral imagery from 11 flights over the western United States in August 2001. The dataset provides calibrated radiance measurements across 50 spectral bands, from visible to thermal infrared wavelengths, at approximately 20-meter spatial resolution. It was collected by the U.S. Department of Energy's Remote Sensing Laboratory using a DOE B-200 aircraft.

Use Cases

• Land surface temperature analysis using thermal infrared bands (wavelengths up to 12.879 micrometers).
• Vegetation and land cover classification leveraging 50 spectral bands across visible and infrared wavelengths.
• Algorithm validation for satellite sensors like MODIS and ASTER, using the MASTER instrument's simulated data.
• Geospatial analysis of flight paths and calibrated radiance maps provided in HDF-4 format.
• Atmospheric studies utilizing the spectral radiance data collected at specific times and locations.

Strengths

• Provides calibrated radiance data across 50 specific spectral bands (0.460 to 12.879 micrometers).
• Contains georeferenced imagery from 11 distinct flights, offering multiple observational samples.
• Data is collected at a high spatial resolution of approximately 20 meters.

Limitations

• Sources conflict on the last updated date (2001-08-31 vs. 2026-03-13), suggesting potential metadata inconsistency.
• Specific column names, row counts, and total dataset size are not provided by any source.
• Primary data is in HDF-4 format, which may require specialized software for access and analysis.

Provenance

Source

U.S. Department of Energy's Remote Sensing Laboratory (RSL) at Nellis Air Force Base.

Collection Method

Data collected by the MODIS/ASTER Airborne Simulator (MASTER) instrument aboard a DOE B-200 aircraft.

Time Range

2001-08-22 to 2001-08 31

Freshness

2026-03-13 01:00:50.138341

Geography

California, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington, U.S.