Supporting Facilities of the Airborne Imaging Spectrometer APEX

The facilities to support the ESA's airborne APEX hyperspectral mission simulator are described. These facilities include calibration tools, such as specific processing in a dedicated Processing and Archiving Facility (PAF), operational calibration and characterization using the Calibration Home Base (CHB), the In-Flight Characterization facility (IFC) and the Calibration Test Master (CTM). Further on, a preview on major applications and the corresponding development efforts to provide scientific data products up to level 2/3 to the user are outlined. Products dedicated for the retrieval of limnology, vegetation, atmospheric parameters, as well as general classification routines and rapid mapping tasks are currently under development and prepared for dissemination by the APEX Science Center (ASC) and the APEX Operations Center (AOC).