The COral Reef Airborne Laboratory (CORAL) campaign focused on evaluating the health of coral reefs and the effects of pollution on them. CORAL carried out six deployments in different locations, including Australia, Hawaii, the Mariana Islands, and Florida, from June to October 2016 and February to May 2017. The Portable Remote Imaging Spectrometer (PRISM) was deployed on the G-IV aircraft to capture hyperspectral images of coral reefs and the ocean surface. CORAL was part of NASA’s Earth Venture Suborbital-2 (EVS-2) projects.
2016-06-06 — 2017-05-28
Great Barrier Reef, Hawaiian Islands, Florida, Mariana Islands, Palau
The Portable Remote Imaging Spectrometer (PRISM) is an airborne push-broom spectrometer developed at Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). PRISM was designed to provide the necessary spectral, spatial, and temporal resolution to characterize events in coastal zones that satellite observations cannot offer. The spectrometer within PRISM operates in the near-ultraviolet to near-infrared range (350-1050 nm) to capture imagery over coastal ocean regions. PRISM also includes a two-channel radiometer operating in the shortwave infrared (1240 and 1640 nm) wavelengths to deliver accurate ocean color measurements. It features a high temporal resolution (167 Hz) and can fly below cloud cover at various altitudes, enabling it to resolve spatial features down to 30 cm.
