The Compact Hyperspectral Prism Spectrometer: Advanced Imaging Spectrometer for Sustainable Land Imaging

The Compact Hyperspectral Prism Spectrometer is being developed as a candidate imaging spectrometer technology for insertion into future Sustainable Land Imaging missions. The 2013 NRC report Landsat and Beyond: Sustaining and Enhancing the Nations Land Imaging Program recommended that the nation should "maintain a sustained, space-based, land-imaging program, while ensuring the continuity of 42-years of multispectral information." In support of this, NASA's Sustainable Land Imaging-Technology program aims to develop a new generation of smaller, more capable, less costly payloads that meet or exceed current Landsat imaging capabilities. CHPS meets these objectives and will provide continuous visible-to-shortwave spectroscopic information at high spectral resolution. CHPS supports continuation of legacy Landsat data products as well as providing additional spectral information for a broader range of land science products. CHPS features full aperture full optical path calibration, exhibits high uniformity, extremely low straylight, and low polarization sensitivity. These are critical for meeting the demanding SLI measurement objectives. In preparation for space-borne instrument development, Ball is currently developing an airborne instrument that will provide representative spectroscopic data and data products. We are now in year 2 of a 3-year program and anticipate conducting initial airborne engineering flights in 4th-quarter 2018.