The Italian Precursor of an Operational Hyperspectral Imaging Mission

PRISMA, that stands for "PRecursore IperSpettrale della Missione Operativa" is an Earth Observation mission funded by Italian Space Agency (ASI) and is the follow-on of previous programmes, both national (HypSeo, phase A/B) and international (JHM phase A, in cooperation with Canada). The Mission will supply worldwide imaging access, with a specific area of interest covering the whole European and Mediterranean region, by providing with unique fusion of hyperspectral and panchromatic imagines. The program is conceived as a precursor of a future operational mission and, consequently, it is mainly driven by the needs of the Italian user community that, for the exploitation of the PRISMA data, will develop a set of dedicated applications. In fact, according to its "public good" nature. PRISMA will focus on the needs of the Italian institutional and research entities. Hyperspectral data, combined with panchromatic imagines, will help to efficiently address the selected applications, such as those related to quality and protection of the environment, sustainable development, climate change, strong economy. The quality of the images and products will be superior to previous and competing systems for what concerns geometry (also thanks to fusion of panchromatic and hyperspectral data), spectral and radiometry.