Hyperspectral Thermal Imager (HyTI) (HyTI)

Objectives and Benefits: Design, build, assemble, test and fly a 6U CubeSat Low Earth Orbital (LEO) demonstration of HyTI (Hyperspectral Thermal Imager) as a “pathfinder” enabling the next generation of high spatial, spectral and temporal resolution thermal infrared (TIR) imagery acquisition from LEO. Monitoring Global Hydrological Cycles and Water Resources, and developing a detailed understanding of the movement, distribution and availability of water and its variability over time and space is a critical need for NASA's Decadal Strategy for Earth Observation from Space. An associated need is the measurement of land surface dynamics by monitoring the continuous variability of land surface temperature (LST). While LEO hyperspectral TIR observations will enable detailed measurements of both hydrological and LST variability, the focus will be on enabling agricultural remote sensing. HyTI will be designed to investigate the following global food and water security issues: 1. Mapping both irrigated and rainfed cropland areas; 2. Determining crop water use (actual evapotranspiration (ET)) of major world crops 3. Establishing crop water productivity ("crop per drop") of major world crops.

Outline of the Proposed Work and Methodology: SaraniaSat Inc. is the HyTI Principal Investigator and lead for the Science/Technology WBS element. The Hawaii Space Flight Laboratory (HSFL) is responsible for Program Management, System Engineering and efforts in all WBS elements:1 through 11. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) will supply the Barrier Infrared Detector (BIRD) focal plane array (FPA) under WBS element 5 (Payload).

The novel HyTI technologies to be space validated for the first time via LEO flight are: 1. Hyperspectral Imager: The HyTI Hyperspectral Imager instrument will be designed and developed by HSFL and the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology (HIGP). Both HSFL and HIGP have a well-established track record of designing and successfully demonstrating state-of-the-art small satellites and imaging payloads ranging from the visible to the IR, including compact hyperspectral imaging for remote-sensing observations. Based on the Fabry-Perot Interferometer principle, the HyTI Hyperspectral Imager is a unique instrument (TRL 5), and will deliver spatial resolution similar to current Landsat-8 performance, but with higher spectral resolution. In a 430 km orbit, the HyTI instrument will have ground sampling resolution of 60m for up to 50 spectral samples in the 8.0-10.7 micron wavelength range, with a peak signal-to-noise ratio of ~500:1. HIGP has successfully demonstrated the proposed “no moving parts” hyperspectral imager for a wide range of Department of Defense programs, as well as for a NASA Instrument Incubator Program.

2. TIR Imager Focal Plane: The heart of the HyTI hyperspectral imager is a 2 Dimensional, BIRD FPA designed and developed at JPL. BIRD imagers have high uniformity, low cost, low noise and higher operating temperatures than previously-flown TIR FPAs. JPL will supply the 2D FPA within an Integrated Dewar Cooler Assembly to HSFL.

3. High-Performance Onboard Computing: Onboard computing (OBC) has been the “holy grail” of scientific, remote-sensing missions. The extremely high volume (estimated 3 Petabytes over a nominal 1 year mission life) of raw hyperspectral imagery justifies the implementation of OBC. SaraniaSat Inc. has developed fast, low computational “footprint” algorithms for weak-signal detection, sensor fusion and orthorectification which, when operating on the advanced Unibap e2160 heterogeneous OBC platform, promise to achieve fast turnaround (within 24 hrs of acquisition) of the processed data and information products.

Period of Performance Construction of the integrated 6U Cubesat-HyTI Flight model: 24 months. HyTI flight demonstration:12 months. Total project period of performance: 36 months.

Entry and planned exit TRL. Entry TRL: TRL5 Exit TRL: TRL6