NASA’s New AVIRIS-5 Sensor Is Taking to the Skies to Hunt for Critical Minerals on Earth
NASA has quietly launched one of its most ambitious Earth science efforts in recent years, and it is happening not from space, but from the edge of the stratosphere. A powerful new airborne sensor called AVIRIS-5 is now flying high above the western United States, scanning the ground below in remarkable detail to help scientists locate critical minerals, including lithium, that are essential for modern technology, clean energy, and national security.
Mounted inside the nose of a high-altitude research aircraft, AVIRIS-5 is already reshaping how geoscientists study Earth’s surface. While the sensor shares deep roots with instruments designed to explore distant planets and moons, its current mission is very much grounded on Earth—mapping rocks, soils, and mineral deposits across vast, often underexplored regions.
What Exactly Is AVIRIS-5?
AVIRIS-5, short for Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer-5, is the latest generation in a long-running family of imaging spectrometers developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California. About the size of a microwave oven, the instrument may not look imposing, but its capabilities are extraordinary.
The sensor works by capturing sunlight reflected from Earth’s surface and breaking that light into hundreds of extremely narrow wavelength bands. Every mineral, compound, and material reflects and absorbs light in a slightly different way due to its chemical structure. These unique patterns—often described as spectral fingerprints—allow scientists to identify materials with a level of precision that traditional imaging simply cannot achieve.
AVIRIS-5 is carried aboard NASA’s ER-2 aircraft, a high-altitude plane capable of flying at roughly 60,000 feet. From that height, the sensor can cover large areas of land while still detecting fine-scale details on the ground.
A Major Collaboration With the USGS
The flights are part of a major joint effort between NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). This airborne campaign is known as GEMx, short for the Geological Earth Mapping Experiment. It represents the airborne component of the broader Earth Mapping Resources Initiative (Earth MRI), a nationwide USGS program aimed at modernizing how the United States maps its surface and subsurface resources.
Earth MRI focuses on identifying resources critical to the country’s economy and security while also improving understanding of geological hazards. GEMx plays a crucial role by providing high-resolution surface mineral data that can guide future ground surveys, drilling programs, and environmental assessments.
So far, AVIRIS-5 has logged more than 200 hours of flight time over Nevada, California, and other Western states. Since 2023, the NASA-USGS team has collected data over more than 366,000 square miles—an area larger than many countries. The American West is particularly well suited to this kind of work because its dry, sparsely vegetated landscapes allow mineral signatures to be detected more easily from the air.
Early Discoveries and Why They Matter
One of the most exciting early findings from the GEMx campaign is the identification of hectorite, a lithium-bearing clay, in multiple locations. Notably, AVIRIS-5 detected this mineral in the tailings of an abandoned mine in California, highlighting the potential to extract new value from old or neglected sites.
Lithium is one of approximately 50 minerals classified as critical by the USGS due to supply-chain vulnerabilities and growing global demand. It plays a central role in electric vehicle batteries, grid-scale energy storage, consumer electronics, and a wide range of advanced technologies.
Beyond resource discovery, the data can also help identify sources of acid mine drainage, an environmental problem that occurs when exposed mine waste reacts with air and water, releasing harmful contaminants into nearby ecosystems. By spotting these areas early, agencies can better plan remediation efforts.
A Sensor With Planetary Heritage
What makes AVIRIS-5 especially fascinating is its deep connection to planetary exploration. Imaging spectrometers like this one have been sent to every major rocky body in the solar system, from Mercury to Pluto. They have mapped the mineral composition of Mars, revealed hydrocarbon lakes on Saturn’s moon Titan, and tracked mineral-rich dust storms across Earth’s deserts.
One such instrument, NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper, famously discovered water on the Moon in 2009, a finding that continues to shape lunar exploration plans under NASA’s Artemis program. Another spectrometer is currently en route to Europa, Jupiter’s icy moon, where it will search for chemical ingredients that could support life.
AVIRIS-5 takes this proven planetary technology and applies it directly to Earth, demonstrating how tools designed for space exploration can deliver powerful benefits closer to home.
Cutting-Edge Engineering Behind the Scenes
AVIRIS-5 owes much of its performance to innovations developed at JPL’s Microdevices Laboratory. Imaging spectrometers rely on precise optical components, including mirrors, detector arrays, and electron-beam gratings that separate incoming light into its component wavelengths—much like a prism.
One standout material used in these instruments is black silicon, one of the darkest materials ever manufactured. Under a microscope, black silicon resembles a dense forest of microscopic spikes. These nanoscale structures trap stray light, preventing it from bouncing around inside the instrument and contaminating measurements. The result is cleaner, more accurate spectral data.
This combination of classical optics—principles first explored by Isaac Newton in the 17th century—and modern materials science has steadily improved imaging spectrometer performance over decades.
How AVIRIS-5 Improves on Earlier Versions
The first AVIRIS instrument flew in 1986, and since then, four generations of sensors have been deployed. Earlier versions were used to study erupting volcanoes, crop health, wildfires, and even debris at ground zero in New York City after the 9/11 attacks.
AVIRIS-5 represents a significant leap forward. Its spatial resolution is twice as fine as that of its predecessor, allowing it to resolve features as small as 30 centimeters (about one foot) under optimal conditions, and up to 10 meters across wider survey areas. This balance between resolution and coverage makes it especially valuable for regional mapping efforts like GEMx.
Each flight produces enormous volumes of data, often visualized as image cubes, where every pixel contains a full spectral profile rather than just color information.
Uses Beyond Critical Minerals
While mineral mapping is a major focus right now, scientists emphasize that critical minerals are only the beginning. AVIRIS-5 data can also support research and decision-making in areas such as land management, snowpack and water resources, ecosystem health, and wildfire risk assessment.
By offering a detailed, consistent view of Earth’s surface chemistry, the sensor provides a powerful tool for understanding how landscapes change over time and how human activity interacts with natural systems.
