ICESat-2 Cal/Val 2022

In July 2022, NASA's LVIS Facility was used to collect data over the Arctic Ocean, including along ICESat-2 Reference Ground Tracks. The LVIS-F lidar sensor was used to collect surface elevation and structure information from 32,000' altitude on the NASA G-V airplane, along with data from as low as 1,700' AGL. LVIS-F operated for a subset of the low altitude flight lines, where the primary sensor was the Leica Chiroptera-4X System from the University of Texas. The LVIS Canon camera (50 MP) was operated at both low and high altitudes. The LVIS Phase One camera (150 MP) was only operated at high altitude. Data on transits to/from data collection sites are also available. Note that the Level 2 data from this mission are distributed in LVIS Data Structure Version (LDS) 2.0.4 (ice surfaces), while the Level 2 data from the transits are distributed in LDS Version 2.0.3 (land surfaces).


Flight trajectories and preliminary coverage maps are available on this page.


Use the python code posted here to view the data products from this mission.

LVIS Mission Information

LVIS Lidar
Instrument: LVIS-F (1.27 mrad)
Flight Platform: NASA Gulfstream V
Nominal Flight Altitude: 500 m
(low altitude)		 10 km
(high altitude)
Nominal Footprint Diameter: 1 m 12 m
Data Products: LVISF1B, LVISF2
LVIS Cameras
Camera Model: PhaseOne iXM-RS150F Canon EOS 5DS R
Lens Models: Rodenstock 180 mm Carl Zeiss Distagon
T* 28mm f/2 ZE
Image Resolution: 150 Megapixels
14,204px x 10,652px		 50.3 Megapixels
5,792px x 8,688px
Nominal Resolution: 3 km x 2 km
(20 cm/px @ 32,000 ft)		 5.6 km x 8.4 km
(100 cm/px @ 32,000 ft)

260 m x 390 m
(5 cm/px @ 1,700 ft)
Nominal Overlap: 67% 67%
Data Product: LVIS_CAM150MP LVIS_CAM050MP

Resources

Airports

  • KEFD - Ellington Field (Houston, TX, USA)
  • BGTL - Thule Air Base (Pituffik, Greenland)
  • KDLH - Duluth International Airport (Duluth, MN, USA)

Related Datasets

Data Products

LVIS Data Products Format Download Location
Flight TrajectoriesKMZThis page
Coverage MapsKMZThis page
LVIS L1A Camera ImageryJPG*NSIDC1, NASA EarthData
LVIS L1B Georeferenced Camera ImageryTIF*NSIDC1, NASA EarthData
LVIS Facility L1B Geolocated WaveformsHDF, LDS 2.0.4NSIDC1, NASA EarthData
LVIS Facility L2 Elevation and Height ProductsASCII TXT, LDS 2.0.3 (land surfaces)
and LDS 2.0.4 (ice surfaces)		NSIDC1, NASA EarthData

1 At NSIDC, search for date ranges 01 Jul 2022 through 31 Jul 2022



View MJD Date Region / Remarks GPS Flight Trajectory Preliminary LVIS Coverage* (Key) L2 Gridded KMZs† Photo KMZs†
CAM150MP CAM050MP
59761 01 July 2022 Sensor calibration flight, Gulf of Mexico [kmz] [kmz] [kmz] [kmz]
59766 06 July 2022 Sensor calibration flight, Gulf of Mexico [kmz] [kmz] [kmz] [kmz]
59767 07 July 2022 Ellington Field to Thule Air Base [kmz] [kmz] [ZG] [kmz] [kmz]
59771 11 July 2022 ICESat-2 RGT 299, high altitude [kmz] [kmz] [Zlow] [kmz] [kmz]
59772 12 July 2022 ICESat-2 RGT 314, high altitude [kmz] [kmz] [Zlow] [kmz] [kmz]
59779 19 July 2022 ICESat-2 RGT 422, high altitude [kmz] [kmz] [Zlow] [kmz] [kmz]
59781 21 July 2022 ICESat-2 RGT 453, low altitude [kmz] [kmz] [Zlow] [kmz] [kmz]
59783 23 July 2022 ICESat-2 RGT 485, primarily low altitude [kmz] [kmz] [Zlow] [kmz] [kmz]
59786 26 July 2022 ICESat-2 RGT 531, primarily low altitude [kmz] [kmz] [Zlow] [kmz] [kmz]
59787 27 July 2022 Transit from Duluth, MN to Ellington Field [kmz] [kmz] [ZG] [kmz] [kmz]
July 2022 All Flights [kmz]

*Preliminary LVIS Coverage locations are generated shortly after a flight and based on quicklook product information and are intended for general guidance only.
Key: Red=0%, Pink=1-10%, Orange=10-20%, Yellow=20-50%, Green=50-100%
†Warning: Gridded and Photo KMZ files are large and may take some time to load in Google Earth