Now that the commissioning phase and the calibration/validation activities have been completed PRISMA is finally ready to open the mission exploitation by the user community.
The Italian Space Agency (ASI) has adopted a free data access policy with only few restrictions: data will be provided free of charge and to everyone; everybody can register as a user!
The only restrictions are related to the prohibition to redistribute the products to third parties and to use the products for commercial purposes as the mission has been developed as a preoperative scientific demonstrator.
These restrictions will be critically assessed by ASI and reviewed at the end of a trial period dedicated both to collect statistical data on the use of the mission by the community (obviously in full compliance with the protection of personal data) and to gain a feedback from the users and the organizations hands-on experience.
To have access to the 27,000 images already available in the PRISMA archive today or to request new hyperspectral acquisitions of the Earth surface, it’s enough to connect to the registration link reported on the website, download the Terms and Conditions document, that contains the rules for the use of the products, enter the applicant personal data in the final page of this document, carefully filling the information requested (specific instructions are provided on page 12-13 of the license) and send the document (only in digital without any document scan).
No signatures are requested: with the upload of the License file the user formally accepts the Terms and Conditions for the use of PRISMA products and will therefore receive the access credentials. PRISMA is a small mission and the management of the registration requests will be available only during normal working hours of the Italian time zone however we will do our best to minimize delays.
The PRISMA satellite, owned by ASI and built by a temporary grouping of enterprises led by OHB Italy and Leonardo, is the first European Earth observation system equipped with an innovative hyperspectral optical sensor, enabling chemical-physical analysis of the Earth from space. The first exciting results of the mission confirm the capabilities of the Italian space technology, that has developed a very important know-how in this sector available for future hyperspectral missions in Europe and in the world.
