MASTER Airborne Multispectral Imagery of Western US and Canada, 2001

Fifty spectral bands of calibrated radiance data were collected by the MODIS/ASTER Airborne Simulator (MASTER) instrument during three NASA ER-2 flights from July 20 to August 18, 2001. The dataset provides Level 1B georeferenced imagery at approximately 50-meter resolution and derived Level 2 products including land surface temperature and emissivity in five thermal infrared bands. It is managed by NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center and includes ancillary flight information.

Use Cases

• Validating satellite-derived land surface temperature products from MODIS or ASTER using the provided L2 temperature data.
• Analyzing surface material composition through spectral emissivity values across five thermal infrared bands (8.58 to 12.13 µm).
• Conducting change detection or land cover classification using georeferenced radiance imagery from 50 spectral bands (0.460 to 12.879 µm).
• Studying regional thermal anomalies or urban heat islands with the spatially continuous land surface temperature maps.
• Integrating flight path and instrument configuration metadata for precise geolocation and radiometric calibration of the imagery.

Strengths

• Provides calibrated radiance data across 50 specific spectral bands, enabling detailed spectral analysis.
• Includes derived geophysical products (emissivity and land surface temperature) for five thermal infrared bands.
• Covers a specific and well-documented time range (2001-07 20 to 2001-08-18) across a large geographic area (western US and Canada).
• Data collection was coordinated by a authoritative source, NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center.

Limitations

• Spatial resolution is approximate ('~50m'); precise ground sample distance may vary.
• Sources conflict on the last update date: Data.gov lists 2026-03-13, while NASA Earthdata lists 2001-08-19, suggesting potential metadata inconsistencies.
• The dataset's size and exact row/column counts are unknown across all platforms.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Armstrong Flight Research Center

Collection Method

Data collected via the MODIS/ASTER Airborne Simulator (MASTER) instrument aboard a NASA ER-2 aircraft during three coordinated flights.

Time Range

2001-07-20 to 2001-08-18

Freshness

2026-03-13 00:49:11.557462

Geography

California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, U.S., and British Columbia, Canada