Airborne thermal and infrared imaging of the western US (2025)
What it measures. Airborne images of the western U.S. recorded in 50 color and heat channels, from visible light through to thermal infrared. The values are calibrated radiance, meaning how much light and heat energy the sensor picked up from the ground below.
How it's made. Collected by the MASTER instrument flown on NASA's high-altitude ER-2 aircraft over California and Nevada in mid-2025, and processed into geolocated, calibrated imagery at about 50-meter detail.
How & where you'd use it. Helps identify vegetation type and health and set a baseline for ecosystems, with an eye toward monitoring natural hazards like wildfires, drought, and volcanoes.
What's measured
Coverage & cadence
- Time span2025-05-27 → 2025-07-17
- Measured byNASA ER-2 (MASTER)
- Processing levelLevel 1B
- Spatial extent-123.812, 32.5727, -114.644, 39.519
- Formatsmultiple
- StatusCOMPLETE
What you can do with it
- Track deforestation, fire scars and land-cover change
- Monitor crop and vegetation health (NDVI/EVI)
- Map how built-up vs. green an area is over time
Official description
This dataset includes Level 1B (L1B) data products from the MODIS/ASTER Airborne Simulator (MASTER) instrument. The spectral data were collected as part of the Western Diversity Time Series (WDTS, formerly HyspIRI) airborne campaign during seven flights aboard a NASA ER-2 aircraft over California and Nevada, U.S., from 2025-05-27 to 2025-07-17. The WDTS campaign will observe California's ecosystems and provide critical information on natural disasters such as volcanoes, wildfires, and drought. MASTER products can identify vegetation type and health and provide a benchmark for the state of the ecosystems against which future changes can be assessed. Data products include L1B georeferenced multispectral imagery of calibrated radiance in 50 bands covering wavelengths of 0.460 to 12.879 micrometers at approximately 50-meter spatial resolution. The L1B files are provided in HDF-4 and KMZ formats. In addition, the dataset includes the flight path, spectral band information, instrument configuration, ancillary notes, and summary information for each flight, and browse images derived from each L1B data file.
Get the data
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc") # free Earthdata Login
results = earthaccess.search_data(
short_name="MASTER_WDTS_Spring_2025_2471",
version="1",
bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9), # your area (W,S,E,N)
temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"), # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results) # stream straight from ORNL_CLOUD Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package. Official links
- Earthdata Search allows users to search, discover, visualize, refine, and access NASA Earth Observation data. GET DATA
- OpenDAP URL USE SERVICE API
- ORNL DAAC Data Set Documentation VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- MASTER: Western Diversity Time Series Campaign, WDTS, Spring 2025: MASTER_WDTS_Spring_2025.pdf VIEW RELATED INFORMATION