NASA’s newest airborne sensor is taking mineral exploration to stratospheric heights, literally.

Called AVIRIS-5, the advanced imaging spectrometer has begun sweeping the American West from 60,000 feet above the ground, mapping lithium-rich rocks and other critical minerals with unprecedented detail.

The instrument, about the size of a microwave oven, flies aboard a high-altitude NASA ER-2 research aircraft.

From that vantage point, it can detect the faint spectral fingerprints of minerals, clays, pigments, and other compounds on Earth’s surface by analyzing how sunlight reflects off them.

The project, in partnership with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), marks the country’s largest airborne mineral-mapping campaign to date.

AVIRIS-5 is the latest in a decades-long line of NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) spectrometers used to study Earth, the Moon, and almost every major rocky world in the solar system.

The new sensor shares its heritage with the instruments that traced Mars’ crust, revealed Titan’s lakes, and first discovered water on the Moon.

AVIRIS-5, however, is built for Earth and for speed.

Mapping hidden treasures

During its first year, AVIRIS-5 logged more than 200 flight hours over Nevada, California, and other Western states as part of the Geological Earth Mapping Experiment (GEMx).

The broader effort, Earth MRI, aims to modernize the nation’s surface and subsurface maps to identify resources essential to energy, manufacturing, and national security.

An early highlight is the detection of hectorite, a valuable lithium-bearing clay, found in the tailings of an abandoned California mine.

Lithium is among 50 minerals the USGS considers critical due to supply chain risks. The ability to spot such deposits from the stratosphere gives geologists a powerful new tool as global demand soars.

“The breadth of different questions you can take on with this technology is really exciting, from land management to snowpack water resources to wildfire risk,” said NASA JPL Earth system scientist Dana Chadwick.

“Critical minerals are just the beginning for AVIRIS-5.”

AVIRIS-5’s improved spatial resolution, twice as sharp as its predecessor, allows it to distinguish features as small as 30 centimeters from 11 miles up.

Each flight generates massive “image cubes” capturing both imagery and detailed spectral data for every pixel.

These spectral signatures allow scientists to pinpoint minerals the way fingerprints identify individuals.

Tech born for space

The technology draws from breakthroughs at NASA JPL’s Microdevices Laboratory, where engineers use prisms, gratings, detector arrays, and advanced materials like black silicon, one of the darkest substances ever made, to eliminate stray light and boost precision.

Similar hardware has flown on missions to Mercury, Mars, Pluto, Titan, and soon Jupiter’s moon Europa.

Since the first AVIRIS took flight in 1986, the family of sensors has analyzed volcanoes, wildfire burn scars, disaster zones, diseased crops, and more.

AVIRIS-5 is now expanding that legacy with the largest U.S. airborne mineral survey ever attempted.

Backed by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, GEMx is set to run for four years. The hope: help communities extract new value from old mines, find new mineral resources, and identify environmental hazards such as acid mine drainage.

For AVIRIS-5, lithium mapping is just the beginning. The sensor is designed to change how we see Earth, one spectral fingerprint at a time.

With over a decade-long career in journalism, Neetika Walter has worked with The Economic Times, ANI, and Hindustan Times, covering politics, business, technology, and the clean energy sector. Passionate about contemporary culture, books, poetry, and storytelling, she brings depth and insight to her writing. When she isn’t chasing stories, she’s likely lost in a book or enjoying the company of her dogs.