PRISMA (''PRecursore IperSpettrale della Missione Applicativa'',
Hyperspectral PRecursor of the Application Mission) is an
Italian Space Agency
The Italian Space Agency (; ASI) is a government agency established in 1988 to fund, regulate and coordinate space exploration activities in Italy. The agency cooperates with numerous national and international entities who are active in aerospac ...
pre-operational and
technology demonstrator
A technology demonstration (or tech demo), also known as demonstrator model, is a prototype, rough example or otherwise incomplete version of a conceivable product or future system, put together as proof of concept with the primary purpose of sho ...
mission focused on the development and delivery of
hyperspectral products and the qualification of the hyperspectral payload in space.
Overview
''PRISMA'' is an
Earth observation satellite
An Earth observation satellite or Earth remote sensing satellite is a satellite used or designed for Earth observation (EO) from orbit, including spy satellites and similar ones intended for non-military uses such as environmental monitoring, me ...
with innovative electro-optical instrumentation which combines a
hyperspectral sensor with a medium-resolution panchromatic camera collecting images at 30 m resolution within 30 km x 30 km scenes. The advantages of this combination are that in addition to the classical capability of observation based on the recognition of the geometrical characteristics of the scene, there is the one offered by hyperspectral sensors which can determine the chemical-physical composition of objects present on the scene. This offers the scientific community and users many applications in the field of
environmental monitoring
Environmental monitoring is the processes and activities that are done to characterize and describe the state of the environment. It is used in the preparation of environmental impact assessments, and in many circumstances in which human activit ...
,
resource management
In organizational studies, resource management is the efficient and effective development of an organization's resources when they are needed. Such resources may include the financial resources, inventory, human skills, production resources, or ...
,
crop classification,
pollution control
Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause harm. Pollution can take the form of any substance (solid, liquid, or gas) or energy (such as radioactivity, heat, sound, or light). Pollutants, the component ...
, etc. Further applications are possible even in the field of
National Security
National security, or national defence (national defense in American English), is the security and Defence (military), defence of a sovereign state, including its Citizenship, citizens, economy, and institutions, which is regarded as a duty of ...
.
''PRISMA'' is a program completely funded by
ASI and is a follow on of the cancelled HypSEO mission.
The satellite was launched on 22 March 2019 aboard a
Vega rocket.
Scientific objectives
*Implementation of an Earth Observation pre-operative mission.
*In orbit demonstration and qualification of an Italian state-of-the-art hyperspectral/panchromatic technology.
*Validation of end-to-end data processing able to develop new applications of spectral resolution images.
*Capitalization of ASI heritage, specifically canceled HypSEO mission and Italian-Canadian Joint Hyperspectral Mission (JHM).
Payload
The Hyperspectral / Panchromatic payload is derived from HypSEO and updated as for the JHM study:
* ''PRISMA'' (Hyperspectral and Panchromatic instrument): a prism
spectrometer
A spectrometer () is a scientific instrument used to separate and measure Spectrum, spectral components of a physical phenomenon. Spectrometer is a broad term often used to describe instruments that measure a continuous variable of a phenomeno ...
composed of the Hyp/Pan camera, an optical head and the main electronics box. The design is based on a
pushbroom sensor type observation concept providing hyperspectral imagery (~ 250 bands) at a spatial resolution of 30 m on a swath of 30 km. The spectral resolution is better than 12 nm in a spectral range of 400-2500 nm (
VNIR
The visible and near-infrared (VNIR) portion of the electromagnetic spectrum has wavelengths between approximately 400 and 1100 nanometers (nm). It combines the full visible spectrum with an adjacent portion of the infrared spectrum up to t ...
and
SWIR regions). In parallel, Pan (Panchromatic) imagery is provided at a spatial resolution of 5 m; the Pan data is co-registered with the Hyp (Hyperspectral) data to permit testing of
image fusion
The image fusion process is defined as gathering all the important information from multiple images, and their inclusion into fewer images, usually a single one. This single image is more informative and accurate than any single source image, and i ...
techniques.
* ''Internal Calibration Unit'' (ICU): an instrument designed to allow the support of absolute and relative radiometric calibrations and spectral calibrations.
* ''Payload Data Handling and Transmission'': This subsystem, of
COSMO-SkyMed
COSMO-SkyMed (COnstellation of small Satellites for the Mediterranean basin Observation) is an Earth-observation satellite space-based radar system funded by the Italian Ministry of Research and Ministry of Defence and conducted by the Ital ...
heritage, is dedicated to the processing of the payload data for the
X band
The X band is the designation for a band of frequencies in the microwave radio region of the electromagnetic spectrum. In some cases, such as in communication engineering, the frequency range of the X band is set at approximately 7.0–11.2&nbs ...
downlink to the
CGS of
Matera
Matera (, ; Neapolitan language, Materano: ) is a city and the capital of the Province of Matera in the regions of Italy, region of Basilicata, in Southern Italy. With a history of continuous occupation dating back to the Palaeolithic (10th mi ...
.
See also
*
COSMO-SkyMed
COSMO-SkyMed (COnstellation of small Satellites for the Mediterranean basin Observation) is an Earth-observation satellite space-based radar system funded by the Italian Ministry of Research and Ministry of Defence and conducted by the Ital ...
*
HySIS
*
EnMAP
References
External links
ASI web page on the missioneoPortal page of PRISMA
{{Orbital launches in 2019
Satellites of Italy
Spacecraft launched in 2019
2019 in Italy
Spacecraft launched by Vega rockets