BackForwardInstrument:  EMIT 

Instrument details
Acronym EMIT
Full name Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation
Purpose To map the surface mineralogy of arid dust source regions via imaging spectroscopy.
Short description Hyperspectral imaging spectrometer in the 380-2500 nm spectral range. Spectral sampling 7.4 nm.
Background Based in part on NASA's Moon Mineralogy Mapper instrument aboard the ISRO Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft.
Scanning Technique Each column of the detector array records the spectrum for a sample of 1240 cross-track samples.
Resolution
Coverage / Cycle
Mass Power Data Rate

 

Providing Agency NASA
Instrument Maturity Flown on an R&D satellite
Utilization Period: 2022 to 2026
Last update: 2023-11-27
Detailed characteristics
Satellites this instrument is flying on

Note: a red tag indicates satellites no longer operational, a green tag indicates operational satellites, a blue tag indicates future satellites

Instrument classification
  • Earth observation instrument
  • Passive optical radiometer or spectrometer
  • Moderate resolution optical imager
WIGOS Subcomponents
  • Subcomponent 2
  • NIR/SWIR imaging spectroscopy
  • NIR/SWIR imaging spectrometer
Mission objectives
Primary mission objectives
  • Aerosol Absorption Optical Depth
  • Aerosol Extinction Coefficient
  • Aerosol Optical Depth
  • Aerosol dust concentration
  • Aerosol effective radius
  • CH4 mole fraction
  • CO2 mole fraction
Evaluation of Measurements

The following list indicates which measurements can typically be retrieved from this category of instrument. To see a full Gap Analysis by Variable, click on the respective variable.

Note: table can be sorted by clicking on the column headers
Note: * Primary mission objective.
VariableRelevance for measuring this variableOperational limitationsExplanation
Cloud cover5 - marginalDaylight only.. Dense cloud only.VIS channel(s)
Earth surface albedo5 - marginalCloud sensitive.VIS channels
Fire fractional cover5 - marginalCloud sensitive.. Coarse spatial resolution.. Daylight only.VIS channels
Fraction of Absorbed PAR (FAPAR)3 - highCloud sensitive.VIS channels including Red at 700 nm
Leaf Area Index (LAI)3 - highCloud sensitive.. Daylight only.VIS and SWIR channels
Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR)3 - highCloud sensitive.VIS channels, range accurately sampled
Snow cover2 - very highCloud sensitive.. Daylight only.VIS and SWIR channels, enabling screening snow from clouds
Aerosol volcanic ash5 - marginalCloud sensitive.. Daylight only.VIS and SWIR channels
Aerosol volcanic ash Total Column5 - marginalCloud sensitive.. Daylight only.VIS and SWIR channels