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AFDRC

Airborne and Field Data Resource Center

Founded

2023

Field experiments are a key component of NASA's Earth Observing System. These efforts collect data from a wide variety of airborne and ground-based instruments to provide high-resolution measurements for studying Earth’s systems, including physical processes, disaster assessment and response, calibration and validation of satellite sensors, new instrument and sensor testing before space deployment, and validation of Earth system models. Such work advances scientific understanding, improves predictions, and helps anticipate impacts from a wide range of events from weather to wildfires to ecological evolution. These measurements can be made on different spatial and temporal scales—often in unique formats—and tend to be more heterogeneous than satellite-based observations.

Center Overview

This virtual resource center is designed to help users find information about NASA's airborne and field, or suborbital, campaign measurements and instruments; provide links to tools and services for data discovery, access, and visualization; and gather learning resources for working with these unique data products.

If you are a data producer interested in submitting your suborbital data for archival and distribution, we have information about data standards and the process for submitting your data to NASA's Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS).

 

NASA airborne and field campaign investigations cover a wide range of technologies and measurements from passive remote sensing (multi-spectral, hyperspectral) to active remote sensing (laser altimeters, synthetic aperture radar), and in-situ sensors. These unique datasets are used to study atmospheric chemistry and composition, hazardous weather, dynamic and physical processes, snow and ice, cryosphere and climate measurements, terrestrial hydrology, biogeochemical and ecological datasets, and more.

NASA’s Airborne Science Program

The Airborne Science Program (ASP) within the Earth Science Division is responsible for providing aircraft systems that further science and advance the use of satellite data. The primary objectives of this program are to:

  • Calibrate and Validate Satellites: Provide platforms to enable essential calibration measurements for the Earth observing satellites, and the validation of data retrieval algorithms.
  • Support New Sensor Development: Provide sub-orbital flight opportunities to test and refine new instrument technologies/algorithms, and reduce risk prior to committing sensors for launch into space.
  • Conduct Process Studies: Obtain high-resolution temporal and spatial measurements of complex local processes, which can be coupled to global satellite observations for a better understanding of the complete Earth system.
  • Develop the Next-Generation of Scientists and Engineers: Foster the development of our future workforce with the hands-on involvement of graduate students, and young scientists/engineers in all aspects of ongoing Earth science investigations.

To meet these observing objectives ASP maintains and operates a suite of sustained, ongoing platforms and sensors on which investigators can rely from year to year.

NASA’s Airborne Data Management Group (ADMG)

The ADMG was established as an inaugural Satellite Needs Working Group (SNWG) solution team to support NASA’s airborne and field science communities, NASA’s discipline-specific data centers, and airborne and field data users. ADMG developed the Catalog of Archived Suborbital Earth Science Investigations (CASEI) to improve the discoverability of and access to airborne and field campaign data.  Beginning in FY 2027, ADMG closes out from the SNWG umbrella, and this airborne and field community support transitions to the ESDIS SubOrbtial Archive Readiness team, or SOAR.

Catalog of Archived Suborbital Earth Science Investigations (CASEI)

ADMG developed and built CASEI as a comprehensive inventory to facilitate quick access to detailed information about NASA’s airborne and field investigations and links to associated data products. CASEI provides intensively curated information about the context, research motivation, funding, and details of non-satellite, sub-orbital instruments and platforms. Information about important events and geophysical concepts and observations are included—all in a single, intuitive, and highly interconnected web user interface and a fully documented API.  As part of the ADMG and SOAR transition, core functionalities of CASEI will be infused into ESDIS and streamlined into the Earthdata web presence.

Standards and Practices

NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS) Standards Coordination Office (ESCO) coordinates standards policy and activities within ESDIS. ESCO follows a Standards Process for identification of appropriate standards and practices and their subsequent adoption for use in NASA Earth science data systems. Information about ESDIS Mission Requirements is also available.

NASA's Airborne and Field Data Workshops

NASA’s Airborne and Field Data Workshops, organized by individuals from ESDIS, ADMG, and DAACs, were virtual events held in 2022 and 2024 to gather information to improve the discoverability, accessibility, and usability of airborne and field data. The inaugural workshop, held in 2022, featured presentations and discussions from airborne and field data users and producers, who focused on what was working well and what areas had room for improvement. The 2024 workshop featured discussions on activities conducted in response to recommendations from the 2022 workshop and also focused on tools, standards, and alignment with NASA agency goals. A report was published after each workshop, summarizing the meeting and providing an overview of feedback and recommendations made by workshop participants. More information about the agendas, slides, and recordings of each workshop are available on their respective Workshop Page.

 

NASA collects, archives, and distributes airborne and field campaign data from across the globe, including its most remote regions. These datasets provide measurements of the Earth’s atmosphere, biosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere, and geosphere and help assess how humans are affected by and interact with the environment. This section provides information about NASA’s core airborne and field data discovery, data access, and data visualization tools.

Find and View Data

Earthdata Search

Earthdata Search is a data discovery and data access tool that allows for the discovery of more than 50,000 Earth Observation data collections from NASA’s Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS), as well as U.S and international agencies across the Earth science disciplines. Multiple temporal and spatial filtering options are available including filters by science area (keyword), Earthdata cloud availability, platform, and instruments. Customization (subsetting, regridding, reformatting) is available for select data collections.

Webinar: Learn How to Discover, Access, and Customize Multiple Datasets Using Earthdata Search

Catalog of Archived Suborbital Earth Science Investigations (CASEI)

CASEI is a comprehensive inventory that facilitates quick access to detailed information about NASA’s airborne and field investigations along with links to associated data products. NASA’s CASEI provides intensively curated information about the context, research motivation, funding, and details of non-satellite, sub-orbital instruments and platforms. Information about important events and geophysical concepts and observations are included, along with links to relevant data products, all in a single, intuitive, and highly interconnected web user interface and a fully documented API.  CASEI was developed and built adjacent to ESDIS and is still openly available as ongoing work is infusing core CASEI functionality into ESDIS and the Earthdata web presence.

Webinar: Empowering Access to Airborne and Field Data with NASA's CASEI
CASEI Frequently Asked Questions

Sub-Orbital Order Tool

The Sub-Orbital Order Tool (SOOT) is designed to promote suborbital research and analysis by enhancing data findability and accessibility at a variable level for campaigns archived at NASA's Atmospheric Science Data Center (ASDC). SOOT has two interfaces, a Search mode and Browse mode, as well as an API. SOOT’s Search user interface (UI) is a cross-campaign faceted search and variable filtering tool. SOOT’s Browse UI enables data exploration within each field campaign. This interface enables experienced users to quickly navigate to the particular data files needed for their analysis. SOOT also features an on-demand merge tool, which allows users to generate data files with desired variables from a common platform and flight to a common sampling time base. SOOT currently has 26 campaigns available with more to be added to SOOT in the future.

StoryMap: SOOT Power User Interface
Webinar: Powered Up Data—Getting to Know the Sub-Orbital Order Tool (SOOT) Power User Interface
Tutorial: Accessing Airborne and Field Campaign Data with the Sub-Orbital Order Tool

Vertex

Vertex provides a rich, intuitive interface for searching, ordering, and downloading SAR data and other thematic remotely sensed datasets. Multiple spatial and temporal filtering options are available including by shapefile, polygon, and more. Users can search SAR data by date and repeating seasonal periods, and many dataset-specific options are available such as product types, beam modes, polarizations, and more. Products can be downloaded directly, or in bulk quantities for large numbers of products.

VideoTutorial: Basic Geographic Search
Video Tutorial: Vertex Basic List Search
Video Tutorial: Vertex Search Results
User Guide
Webinar: Discover and Access SAR Data with ASF DAAC's Vertex: Better, Stronger, Faster

OpenScienceLab
OpenScienceLab is an ecosystem of open-source tools for data analysis. At the heart of OpenScienceLab is OpenSARLab, which opens a door to the world of SAR processing in the cloud via a JupyterLab environment.

Webinar: Jump-Start SAR Data Analysis in the Cloud with ASF’s OpenSARLab

View and Visualize Data

Field Campaign Explorer

The Field Campaign eXplorer (FCX) is a cloud native web based 3D data visualization platform that can incorporate science data collected from instruments aboard aircraft, ground sensors, and satellites. The instrument data are displayed within an interactive map viewer along flight tracks. This advanced tool reduces the effort involved in discovering data, is designed for event-based research, allows for seamless movement between data visualization, discovery and acquisition, and enhances the user experience by improving the usability of heterogeneous data.

Webinar: Shifting the Paradigm: Discover, Access, and Process Data With Cloud-Based Services

 

Data Learning Resources

Explore these resources to help navigate suborbital datasets, data tools, and other data information to get started with NASA’s suborbital data holdings. All learning resources are currently available under the Learn section on the Earthdata website.

User Guides: Dataset, campaign, and data tool reference guides provide information about the suborbital datasets or campaigns to include data characteristics, applications and derivation, quality assessment, data acquisition and data methodology. Dataset documentation is available on project pages, dataset landing pages and additional data tool user guides are available for most tools.

GitHub Data Recipes/ Tutorials

Data Recipes and Jupyter Notebooks: Step-by-step data discovery and data access tutorials are available for using discipline-specific and cross-discipline tools and applications, as well as programming languages within the Jupyter Notebook ecosystem.

Application Programming Interfaces (APIs)

NASA's Earthdata Developer Portal is for application developers who wish to build applications that search, access, and browse EOSDIS Earth science data. It is the central location for all publicly accessible developer documentation related to EOSDIS enterprise services and applications.

GIS Resources

GIS resources are also available for data users. NASA's Earthdata GIS (EGIS) resources enable access to GIS-ready NASA Earth science data, services, and resources - providing a consistent user experience and enhancing resource discovery through platforms commonly used by the GIS community.

StoryMaps

These interactive maps illustrate data stories for specific events or missions through a rich, visual experience using geospatial data imagery layers, web maps, and more.

Data Citations and Acknowledgements

NASA promotes the full and open sharing of all data with the research and applications communities, private industry, academia, and the general public. NASA data are freely accessible; however, when you publish these data or works based on the data, we request that you cite the datasets within the text of the publication and include a reference to them in your reference list. This is important, because by citing your use of a dataset, you are supporting the reproducibility of your research and attributing credit to those who provided the data—including datasets that you have created yourself. Citing data is also important for measuring the impact of your work.

Application Programming Interfaces (APIs)

NASA's Earthdata Developer Portal is for application developers who wish to build applications that search, access, and browse EOSDIS Earth science data. It is the central location for all publicly accessible developer documentation related to EOSDIS enterprise services and applications.

 

Earthdata Forum: The Earthdata Forum provides a central, online location where data users can interact with subject matter experts from DAACs to discuss data applications and research needs, and get answers to specific questions about accessing, viewing, and manipulating NASA Earth observation data.

Earthdata Support: You can submit a ticket here that will be filtered and triaged to the appropriate discipline-specific DAAC or subject matter experts.

Earthdata Data Basics (includes Glossary)

Acronym and Symbol List