CSDA Vendor - Teledyne Brown Engineering
NASA's Commercial Satellite Data Acquisition (CSDA) program has acquired commercial datasets from Teledyne Brown Engineering for scientific purposes.
Teledyne Brown Engineering operates the German Aerospace Center Earth Sensing Imaging Spectrometer (DESIS), s a push broom, hyperspectral instrument currently installed on the Multi-User System for Earth Sensing (MUSES) platform on the International Space Station. DESIS has been acquiring imagery since October 2018, and with its 235 bands in the visible through near-infrared spectral region and a 30-meter ground sample distance, it provides more in-depth spectral information about the Earth’s features than is typically available from satellite or airborne sensors.
Obtaining Data
- To request access to CSDA-distributed data, complete the CSDA Authorization form. The CSDA team will verify if the user is authorized for data access.
- Search and download DESIS data from Teledyne Brown Engineering using the CSDA Satellite Data Explorer (SDX). An Earthdata Login is required.
Copyright
Data products and derivatives must contain the following copyright markings (where YYYY is the year of the image acquisition):
- For DESIS data: “© Teledyne Brown Engineering, Inc., YYYY. All Rights Reserved.”
- For derivatives: "Includes copyrighted material of Teledyne Brown Engineering, Inc., All Rights Reserved.”
- A joint copyright notice may be used as appropriate
CSDA Acknowledgment
To help CSDA identify your publications, we request that you include the following acknowledgment when publishing work created using these data:
"This work utilized data made available through the NASA Commercial Satellite Data Acquisition (CSDA) program." Authorized users should send CSDA a courtesy copy of any publications that include CSDA-distributed data.
Research Using Teledyne Brown Engineering Data
Teledyne Brown Engineering CSDA Publications in Zotero
Teledyne Brown Engineering Commercial Data
DESIS Performance Specifications
| Parameter | DESIS values (Commissioning Phase) |
|---|---|
| Orbit (type, local time at equator, inclination, altitude, period, repeat cycle) | not Sun-synchronous, various, 51.6°, 405 ± 5 km, 93 min, no repeat cycle |
| Coverage | 55° N to 52° S |
| Tilt (across-track, along-track) | -45° to +5°, -40° to +40° by MUSES and DESIS |
| Sensor pointing | ±15° along-track to enable BRDF or Stereo acquisitions |
| Spectral coverage | 402 nm to 1000 nm |
| Number of spectral channels | 235 (no binning) ~2.5nm 118 (binning 2) 79 (binning 3) 60 (binning 4) ~10nm, this product will be available June 2019 |
| Defective spectral channels | Bands 1–7 (no binning) Bands 1–4 (binning 2) Bands 1–3 (binning 3) Bands 1–2 (binning 4) |
| Spectral sampling resolution | 2.55 nm (w/o binning); ~10.2 nm (binning 4) |
| Full Width Half Maximum (FWHM) | ~3.5 nm (w/o binning); ~10.0 nm (binning 4) |
| Radiometric resolution | 12 bits + 1 bit gain |
| Radiometric accuracy | +/-10% (based on on-ground calibration and with the support of inflight radiometric calibration) |
| Radiometric linearity | 99% |
| Swath | 30 km |
| Spatial resolution, pixels | 30 m, 1024 pixels (@400 km) |
| Geometric accuracy | ~20 m with GCPs1 ~300 m - 400 m w/o GCPs |
| MTF @ Nyquist | 30%–40% based on on-ground calibration / static MTF without smearing effects / wavelength depending |
| Signal-to-Noise ratio (albedo 0.3 @ 550 nm) | 195 (w/o binning) 386 (4 binning) (based on on-ground calibration) |
| Dark/Read noise (electrons) | 30–60e- (global shutter) 15–30e- (rolling shutter) |
| Quantum scale equivalent (e-/DN) | 0.04 e-/DN |
| Max frame rate | 235Hz (@235 spectral lines, rolling shutter) 117Hz (@235 spectral lines, global shutter) |
| Solar zenith angle restrictions (for L2A level processing) | > 55° produces reduced quality L2A product > 65° produces low quality L2A product > 70° not processable to L2A |
Authorized Data Use and Users
Access to this data is governed by the CSDA End User License Agreements (EULAs). The minimum access level for data is the USG license. Depending on the specific data products provided, some or all data may also be available under higher-tier CSDA licenses, including USG‑Plus and Public licenses.
Under the applicable license tier, authorized users may include:
- U.S. Government federal employees
- State, local, territorial, and tribal government personnel
- U.S. Government contractors and subcontractors
- U.S. Government–funded researchers and academic partners
- Other users authorized under applicable CSDA license levels (USG, USG‑Plus, or Public)
All data use must comply with the terms of the EULA. All data requests must be reviewed and approved by NASA’s Commercial Satellite Data Acquisition (CSDA) program.