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MASTER: Pacific Rim Campaign, July-October, 2000

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Documentation Revision Date: 2023-04-13

Dataset Version: 1

Summary

This dataset includes Level 1B (L1B) data products from the MODIS/ASTER Airborne Simulator (MASTER) instrument. The spectral data were collected during 46 flights aboard a NASA DC-8 aircraft over sites encompassing the Pacific Rim, including Alaska, California, Hawaii, islands of the south and western Pacific Ocean, New Zealand, Australia, Polynesia, southeast Asia, South Korea, and Japan. Flights took place on 2000-07-21 to 2000-10-23. The Pacific Rim 2000 (PacRim II) Campaign gathered geographic and atmospheric data for coastal analysis, oceanography, forestry, geology, hydrology and archaeology of various regions using data from the Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (AirSAR) and MODIS/ASTER Airborne Simulator (MASTER) instruments. This was the first campaign to operate both the AIRSAR and MASTER instruments simultaneously, providing scientists with additional insight on how topography affects the vegetation and land surface temperature as seen in the MASTER data. Data products include L1B georeferenced multispectral imagery of calibrated radiance in 50 bands covering wavelengths of 0.460 to 12.879 micrometers at approximately 25-meter spatial resolution. The L1B file format is HDF-4. In addition, the dataset includes flight paths, spectral band information, instrument configuration, ancillary notes, and summary information for each flight, and browse images derived from each L1B data file.

The MASTER instrument is a modified Daedalus Wildfire scanning spectrometer that flies on a variety of multi-altitude research aircraft and provides spectral information similar to that provided by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER), which are aboard two NASA Earth Observing System satellites: Terra and Aqua. MASTER provides data in 50 channels spanning visible to thermal infrared wavelengths (0.4 – 13 µm). Its data have been used to study geological patterns, land covers, ecological disturbances, and other phenomena that affect Earth surface properties.

This dataset includes a total of 1098 data files: 411 files in Hierarchical Data Format (HDF-4; *.hdf) format, 184 text (*.txt) files, 46 archives of text files that are zipped (*.zip), 46 flight maps as GIF (*.gif) images, and 411 browse images in JPEG (*.jpg) format.

Figure 1. Single-band images and a RGB composite image from flight track 1 acquired on 3 September 2000 over the Mordor Complex east of Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Australia (lat -23.5, lon 134.42). Source: MASTERL1B_0002022_01_20000903_2347_2350_V02.jpg

Citation

Hook, S.J., J.S. Myers, K.J. Thome, M. Fitzgerald, A.B. Kahle, Airborne Sensor Facility NASA Ames Research Center, and F.A. Kruse. 2022. MASTER: Pacific Rim Campaign, July-October, 2000. ORNL DAAC, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA. https://doi.org/10.3334/ORNLDAAC/2093

Table of Contents

  1. Dataset Overview
  2. Data Characteristics
  3. Application and Derivation
  4. Quality Assessment
  5. Data Acquisition, Materials, and Methods
  6. Data Access
  7. References

Dataset Overview

This dataset includes Level 1B (L1B) data products from the MODIS/ASTER Airborne Simulator (MASTER) instrument. The spectral data were collected during 46 flights aboard a NASA DC-8 aircraft over sites encompassing the Pacific Rim, including Alaska, California, Hawaii, islands of the south and western Pacific Ocean, New Zealand, Australia, Polynesia, southeast Asia, South Korea, and Japan. Flights took place on 2000-07-21 to 2000-10-23. Data products include L1B georeferenced multispectral imagery of calibrated radiance in 50 bands covering wavelengths of 0.460 to 12.879 micrometers at approximately 25-meter spatial resolution. The L1B file format is HDF-4. In addition, the dataset includes flight paths, spectral band information, instrument configuration, ancillary notes, and summary information for each flight, and browse images derived from each L1B data file.

The Pacific Rim 2000 (PacRim II) Campaign gathered geographic and atmospheric data for coastal analysis, oceanography, forestry, geology, hydrology and archaeology of various regions using data from the Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (AirSAR) and MODIS/ASTER Airborne Simulator (MASTER) instruments. This was the first campaign to operate both the AIRSAR and MASTER instruments simultaneously, providing scientists with additional insight on how topography affects the vegetation and land surface temperature as seen in the MASTER data (Tapley et al. 2001).

The MASTER instrument is a modified Daedalus Wildfire scanning spectrometer that flies on a variety of multi-altitude research aircraft and provides spectral information similar to that provided by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER), which are aboard two NASA Earth Observing System satellites: Terra and Aqua. MASTER provides data in 50 channels spanning visible to thermal infrared wavelengths (0.4 – 13 µm). Its data have been used to study geological patterns, land covers, ecological disturbances, and other phenomena that affect Earth surface properties.

Project: MODIS/ASTER Airborne Simulator

The MODIS/ASTER Airborne Simulator (MASTER) is a scanning spectrometer which flies on a variety of multi-altitude research aircraft and provides data similar to the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER). MASTER first flew in 1998 and has ongoing deployments as a Facility Instrument in the NASA Airborne Science Program (ASP). MASTER is a joint project involving the Airborne Sensor Facility (ASF) at the Ames Research Center, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and the Earth Resources Observation and Science Center (EROS).

Related Publications

Hook, S.J. Myers, J.J., Thome, K.J., Fitzgerald, M. and A.B. Kahle. 2001. The MODIS/ASTER airborne simulator (MASTER) - a new instrument for earth science studies. Remote Sensing of Environment 76:93–102. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0034-4257(00)00195-4

Tapley, I.J., A.K. Milne and E. O'Leary. 2001. An overview of the PACRIM 2000 Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (AIRSAR) mission in the Pacific, Australia and Asian region. Pp. 1387-1388 in Proceedings of IGARSS 2001: Scanning the Present and Resolving the Future. IEEE 2001 International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (Cat. No.01CH37217), Vol. 3. https://doi.org/10.1109/IGARSS.2001.97685

Related Datasets

Additional MASTER datasets are available on the ORNL DAAC MASTER project page.

Acknowledgments

The MASTER instrument is maintained and operated by the Airborne Sensor Facility (ASF) at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, under the oversight of the EOS Project Science Office at NASA Goddard. Data processing was conducted at NASA Ames Research Center and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California.

Data Characteristics

Spatial Coverage: Selected islands of the Pacific Ocean; portions of Australia, eastern Asia; Alaska, and California, U.S.

Spatial Resolution: 2 to 30 m

Temporal Coverage: 2000-07-21 to 2000-10-23

Temporal Resolution: One-time estimate

Study Area: All latitudes and longitudes given in decimal degrees. Note that this study area crosses the Antimeridian.

Site Westernmost Longitude Easternmost Longitude Northernmost Latitude Southernmost Latitude
Islands of Pacific Ocean and Pacific Rim sites 101.363 -119.778 65.199 -55.379

Data File Information

This dataset includes a total of 1098 data files: 411 files in Hierarchical Data Format (HDF-4; *.hdf) format, 184 text (*.txt) files, 46 archives of text files that are zipped (*.zip), 46 flight maps as GIF (*.gif) images, and 411 browse images in JPEG (*.jpg) format.

There are different numbers of each type of file, which corresponds to the number of "flights" and "flight tracks. A "flight" is flown on a single day, and a "flight track" typically refers to a segment of a given flight.

  • There are 46 flights, which include 411 flight tracks.
  • For each flight track, there is one L1B data file in HDF format. There is one auxiliary browse image (*.jpg) for 152 tracks.
  • For each flight, there is a collection of auxiliary files providing information about the flight and instrument configuration.

The primary data files are named MASTERLAA_BBBBBBBB_CC_YYYYMMDD_EEFF_GGHH_V0J-X.ext (e.g., MASTERL1B_0002002_01_20000721_1750_1753_V02.hdf).

The flight track-level browse images are named MASTERLAA_BBBBBBBB_CC_YYYYMMDD_EEFF_GGHH_V0J.jpg (e.g., MASTERL1B_0002002_01_20000721_1750_1753_V02.jpg).

The deployment-level auxiliary files are named MASTER_BBBBBBBB_YYYYMMDD_X.ext (e.g., MASTER_0002002_20000721_config.txt).

  • AA = ”1B” , indicating L1B data level,
  • BBBBBBBB = flight number (Table 2),
  • CC = flight track (Table 2)
  • YYYYMMDD = date of sampling in UTC,
  • EEFF = starting time at EE hour and FF minute in UTC,
  • GGHH = ending time at GG hour and HH minute in UTC,
  • J = version number for file,
  • X = the file content (see Table 1), and
  • ext = "hdf", "gif", "jpg", "txt", or "zip", indicating the file extension.

Table 1. File names and descriptions.

File Name Level File Type Total Files Description
Primary Data Files
MASTERL1B_BBBBBBBB_CC_YYYYMMDD_EEFF_GGHH_V0J.hdf L1B HDF-4 411 Multispectral radiance in 50 bands, pixel coordinates, sensor configuration, aircraft platform data, analysis parameters. The "CalibratedData" variable provides estimates of radiance in units of W m-2 sr-1 per micron.
Auxiliary files
MASTERL1B_BBBBBBBB_CC_YYYYMMDD_EEFF_GGHH_V0J.jpg  L1B JPEG 411 Browse figures; one per flight track, multiple tracks per flight.
MASTER_BBBBBBBB_YYYYMMDD_ancillary.txt - Text 46 Ancillary information about flight including notes on aircraft platform, mission objective, and data evaluation.
MASTER_BBBBBBBB_YYYYMMDD_config.txt - Text 46 Instrument configuration information for flight.
MASTER_BBBBBBBB_YYYYMMDD_flightpath.gif - GIF 46 Map showing flight paths.
MASTER_BBBBBBBB_YYYYMMDD_spectral_band_info.txt - Text 46 Spectral band information.
MASTER_BBBBBBBB_YYYYMMDD_spectral_response_table.zip - Text 46 Spectral response tables by band (ZIP archive of 50 text files).
MASTER_BBBBBBBB_YYYYMMDD_summary.txt - Text 46 Time and coordinates for start and end of flight tracks along with the number of scan lines, solar and instrument angles, aircraft altitude, and additional information. FTLT = flight track number.

Data File Details

The HDF-4 files contain swath trajectory data using longitude, latitude coordinates. The spatial resolution is 2 to 30 m and is a function of aircraft altitude.

Table 2. Number of flight tracks for each MASTER flight during this 2000 deployment over Pacific Rim sites, including sites in French Polynesia (PYF), American Samoa (ASM), New Zeeland (NZL), Australia (AUS), Indonesia (IDN), Malaysia (MYS), Philippines (PHL), Japan (JPN), Northern Mariana Islands (MNP), and United States (US) (Figure 2).

Date Flight Number Locations Flight Tracks
2000-07-21 0002002 Lake Tahoe, California-Nevada, US 12
2000-07-22 0002003 Ivanpah, California, US 12
2000-07-27 0002005 Montezuma Hills, California, US 12
2000-07-31 0002006 Pacific Ocean Equatorial Crossing 4
2000-08-04 0002007 Makatea, PYF 18
2000-08-05 0002008 Makatea, PYF 3
2000-08-06 0002009 Rurutu, PYF 4
2000-08-08 0002010 Manua, ASM 4
2000-08-10 0002011 Savusavu Bay, FJI (Fiji) 4
2000-08-12 0002012 South Island, NZL 7
2000-08-14 0002013 White Island reef, NZL 7
2000-08-16 0002014 Macquarie Island, AUS 9
2000-08-17 0002015 Uardry, AUS 9
2000-08-18 0002016 Bagobucc, AUS 11
2000-08-19 0002017 Mt. Fitton, AUS 4
2000-08-24 0002018 Hunter Region, AUS 11
2000-08-26 0002019 Strickland River, PNG 4
2000-08-28 0002020 Bougainville, PNG (Papua New Guinea) 8
2000-08-30 0002021 Palm Island, AUS 16
2000-09-03 0002022 Mordor Complex, AUS 12
2000-09-06 0002023 Finke River, AUS 9
2000-09-09 0002024 Cervantes, AUS 17
2000-09-13 0002025 E. Alligator River, AUS 3
2000-09-15 0002026 S. Alligator River, AUS 14
2000-09-15 0002027 Sungai Wain, IDN 1
2000-09-17 0002028 Kinabalu coast, MYS 8
2000-09-19 0002029 Pekan, MYS 13
2000-09-20 0002030 Angkor, KHM (Cambodia) 2
2000-09-23 0002031 Parker Volcano, PHL 8
2000-09-24 0002032 Balayan Bay, PHL 20
2000-09-27 0002033 Polollio Is., PHL 12
2000-09-30 0002034 Jeju Island, ROK (South Korea) 3
2000-10-02 0002035 Tsukuba, JPN 1
2000-10-04 0002036 Nara, JPN 22
2000-10-06 0002037 Farallonde de Pajaros, MNP 6
2000-10-07 0002038 Palau Islands 9
2000-10-09 0002039 Saipan, MNP 2
2000-10-11 0002040 Pu'u O'o, Hawaii, US 24
2000-10-13 0002041 Barbers Point, Hawaii, US 14
2000-10-14 0002042 Molokai, Hawaii, US 9
2000-10-16 0002043 Pu'u O'o, Hawaii, US 14
2000-10-17 0002044 Okmok, Alaska, US 6
2000-10-19 0002045 Ladue, Alaska, US 6
2000-10-21 0002046 Richardson, Alaska, US 13
2000-10-22 0002047 Dot Lake, Alaska, US 3
2000-10-23 0002048 Lake Tahoe, California, US 1
Total 411

User Notes: 

  • Dates and times are provided in UTC. Many flights begin shortly before midnight (UTC) on the date listed in Table 2 and end in early hours of the following day.  Files for flight tracks beginning after midnight will have the following day encoded in their file name.
  • There are missing latitude and longitude coordinates in MASTERL1B_0002040_13_20001012_0108_0117_V02..hdf.  Missing values are indicated by -999 and -639 for latitude and longitude, respectively.

Application and Derivation

The primary objective of MASTER is to: (a) collect ASTER-like and MODIS-like land datasets to support the validation of the ASTER and MODIS geophysical retrieval algorithms; (b) collect these datasets at a higher resolution than the spaceborne datasets to permit scaling studies and comparisons with in-situ measurements; and (c) under fly the EOS-AM1 ASTER and MODIS sensors to provide an additional radiometric calibration to assist with in-flight instrument performance characterization. Calibration is particularly important for ASTER where on-board calibration is dependent on a single black body in the TIR and only partial aperture illumination in the VNIR.

A secondary objective of MASTER is to: (a) provide both a backup instrument and backup modules for the current MODIS Airborne simulator, which is committed to a program of atmospheric and oceanic measurements; and (b) provide a wider spectral and dynamic range alternative to the use of the Thematic Mapper (TM) airborne simulator and Thermal Infrared Multispectral Scanner (TIMS) airborne scanners (JPL, 2021b).

The Pacific Rim 2000 (PacRim II) Campaign gathered geographic and atmospheric data for coastal analysis, oceanography, forestry, geology, hydrology and archaeology of various regions using data from the Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (AirSAR) and MODIS/ASTER Airborne Simulator (MASTER) instruments. This was the first campaign to operate both the AIRSAR and MASTER instruments simultaneously, providing scientists with additional insight on how topography affects the vegetation and land surface temperature as seen in the MASTER data (Tapley et al. 2001).

 MASTER imagery has been used for mapping wildfires and their impacts (Veraverbeke et al., 2011), land covers (Li and Moon, 2004), coral reefs (Capolsini et al., 2003), and urban heat islands (Zhao and Wentz, 2016).

Quality Assessment

The MASTER instrument channels are calibrated spectrally and radiometrically in the laboratory preflight and postflight. The mid-infrared and thermal infrared channels (26–50) are also radiometrically calibrated in-flight by viewing an internal hot and cold blackbody with each scanline (Hook et al., 2001). Three calibration and validation experiments were conducted in 1998–2001 (Hook et al., 2001; JPL, 2021a). Spectral response information for this deployment is included in the MASTER_BBBBBBBB_YYYYMMDD_spectral_response_table.zip files.

Data Acquisition, Materials, and Methods

The MASTER instrument was developed by the NASA Ames Research Center in conjunction with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The instrument consists of three key components: the scanning spectrometer, the digitizer, and the storage system. The scanning unit was built by Sensys Technology (formerly Daedalus Enterprises) and the digitizer was a collaborative effort between Berkeley Camera Engineering and the Ames Airborne Sensor Facility (ASF). The data storage system and overall system integration were also provided by the ASF.

The MASTER instrument is similar to the MODIS Airborne Simulator (MAS) developed by the MODIS project (King et al., 1996). However, it has two key differences. First, MASTER supports a variety of scan speeds allowing it to acquire contiguous imagery from a variety of altitudes with different pixel sizes. Second, the channel positions are configured to closely match those of ASTER and MODIS. A detailed description of the instrument and optical system are provided by Hook et al. (2001) and King et al. (1996), respectively.

For this deployment, the MASTER instrument was flown on a NASA DC-8 aircraft at altitudes of 5800 to 11,900 m above sea level.

Study areas in this dataset

Figure 2. Study areas in this dataset represented as red polygons. Basemap: © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Example flight path

Figure 3. Flight path is shown for 03 September 2000. Flight 0002022 and 12 flight tracks. Map shows flight path from temporary base in Queensland, Australia, to study area in southern Northern Territory, Australia. Source: MASTER_0002022_20000903_flightpath.gif

Data Access

These data are available through the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC).

MASTER: Pacific Rim Campaign, July-October, 2000

Contact for Data Center Access Information:

References

Capolsini, P., S. Andréfouët, C. Rion, and C. Payri. 2003. A comparison of Landsat ETM+, SPOT HRV, Ikonos, ASTER, and airborne MASTER data for coral reef habitat mapping in South Pacific islands. Canadian J. Remote Sensing 29:187-200. https://doi.org/10.5589/m02-088

Coll, C., V. Caselles, E. Rubio, F. Sospedra, and E. Valor. 2001. Temperature and emissivity separation from calibrated data of the Digital Airborne Imaging Spectrometer. Remote Sensing of Environment 76:250-259. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0034-4257(00)00207-8

Hook, S.J. Myers, J.J., Thome, K.J., Fitzgerald, M., and A.B. Kahle. 2001. The MODIS/ASTER airborne simulator (MASTER) - a new instrument for earth science studies. Remote Sensing of Environment 76:93-102. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0034-4257(00)00195-4

JPL. 2021a. Calibration and Validation, MASTER: MODIS/ASTER Airborne Simulator. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA. https://masterprojects.jpl.nasa.gov/cal-val

JPL. 2021b. Science objectives, MASTER: MODIS/ASTER Airborne Simulator. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA. https://masterprojects.jpl.nasa.gov/objectives

King, M.D., W.P. Menzel, P.S. Grant, J.S. Myers, G.T. Arnold, S.E. Platnick, L.E. Gumley, S.C. Tsay, C.C. Moeller, M. Fitzgerald, K.S. Brown, and F.G. Osterwisch. 1996. Airborne scanning spectrometer for remote sensing of cloud, aerosol, water vapor and surface properties. J. Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology 13:777-794. https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0426(1996)013<0777:ASSFRS>2.0.CO;2

Li, P., and W.M. Moon. 2004. Land cover classification using MODIS-ASTER airborne simulator (MASTER) data and NDVI: A case study of the Kochang area, Korea. Canadian J. Remote Sensing 30:123-126. https://doi.org/10.5589/m03-061

Tapley, I.J., A.K. Milne and E. O'Leary. 2001. An overview of the PACRIM 2000 Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (AIRSAR) mission in the Pacific, Australia and Asian region. Pp. 1387-1388 in Proceedings of IGARSS 2001: Scanning the Present and Resolving the Future. IEEE 2001 International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (Cat. No.01CH37217), Vol. 3. https://doi.org/10.1109/IGARSS.2001.97685

Veraverbeke, S., S. Harris, and S. Hook. 2011. Evaluating spectral indices for burned area discrimination using MODIS/ASTER (MASTER) airborne simulator data. Remote Sensing of Environment 115:2702-2709. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2011.06.010

Zhao, Q., and E.A. Wentz. 2016. A MODIS/ASTER Airborne Simulator (MASTER) imagery for urban heat island research. Data 1:7. https://doi.org/10.3390/data1010007