Information for Researchers on NASA AVIRIS-3 Imaging Flights over Cornell Research Farms— July 21– Aug 15
Edit 7/24/25: The acquisition window has been extended to August 15th, 2025.
NASA’s Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS-3) will be collecting hyperspectral imagery over the Cornell research farms (AgriTech, CLEREL, Musgrave, Ithaca, and CURC) as well as surrounding Finger Lakes/Lake Erie between July 19 – 29! These flights are funded by the NASA Agriculture program office in support of the NASA ACRES consortium research. We will generate a real time data product and downstream foliar-trait maps (N, water, NSC, phenolics, etc.) that we’ll share with the AgriTech & broader Cornell community.
Key details & links
| What | When/Where | More info |
| Flight window | Saturday July 19 – Tue July 29 (exact day is weather dependent) | The pilots plan to acquire as much data as possible within a single day, and plan to make a stop at the ITHACA airport for photo ops. |
| Go ⁄ no-go call | Daily, starting tomorrow (Fri July 18)@ 7:30 EDT | Please reach out to me if you are interested in listening in on these daily flight team calls. |
| Planned flight lines & real time data product | Interactive MMGIS portal | https://popo.jpl.nasa.gov/mmgis-aviris/?mission=Acres |
| Live aircraft tracking | Tail N53W on FlightAware | https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/N53W |
| Realtime updates | WhatsApp broadcast list | https://chat.whatsapp.com/CG7q8yVHObfC8xB9JeFI9S |
What we need from you
- Minimize non-essential, in-field activities inside research plots from 10:30 am – 1:30 pm (solar noon) on AVIRIS flight day. Minimizing canopy disturbance and stray reflectance during overpasses helps us capture the cleanest data possible. We’ll confirm go day to this listserv in the early morning so you can plan.
- Trait-sampling campaign. Our collaborators from Phil Townsend’s lab (UW-Madison) are aiming to collect ~20 g of leaf tissue from as many different crop types and varieties as possible to calibrate the foliar trait maps to ensure accuracy. If your research sites are affected you’ve already been—or soon will be—contacted individually. Please reply to that note with any corrections or concerns. Samples will only be collected from sites that we receive express, written permission
- Questions or conflicts? Just let us know and we’ll try to accommodate your schedule.
The imagery and derived trait products should offer exciting new opportunities for crop physiology, management, and remote-sensing research across AgriTech. Thanks in advance for helping us make this campaign a success!
More on AVIRIS research: https://aviris.jpl.nasa.gov/
Best,
Katie Gold, NASA Acres Institutional PI
Yu Jiang, NASA Acres co-PI
Dana Chadwick, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory