Mission Status of CHRIS/PROBA and its Utility for Sampling the Earth Surface BRDF.

CHRIS is a novel, compact imaging spectrometer sensor due to be launched as part of the payload of the agile smallsat, PROBA. CHRIS/PROBA provides a unique opportunity to study the Earth surface BRDF, due to its exceptional angular sampling and comparatively fine spatial and spectral resolutions. This pape r presents the characteristics of the CHRIS /PROBA mission, particularly those which have an impact on BRDF studies. Caveats concerning the pre processing of the data, which is largely the responsibility of the user, are highlighted. The work being undertaken by the authors in preparation for the exploitation of the data through the extraction of biophysical parameters by inversion of physically based models of plant canopy BRDF is also discussed.