At a Virginia field site, five researchers used a build-it-yourself NASA sensor to connect measurements from the ground, a drone, and an aircraft.
I’m Bennett Blackwood.
STELLA is a small, open-source spectrometer developed at NASA Goddard. Its parts lists, assembly instructions, and software are freely available online. During a summer twenty twenty-six campaign at the University of Virginia’s Morven site, the team measured how the ground reflected light while a drone and NASA’s G-LiHT aircraft observed the same cover from above.
Bianca Cilento designed the field plan and taught the group. The team included a NASA postdoctoral researcher, a graduate student, and two undergraduate Decarbonization Academy fellows. For several of them, it was a first hands-on experience with STELLA. Undergraduate Emeline Daley described how quickly the process clicked.
Emeline Daley, original recorded interview: It was rather intuitive to use, and, you know, a lot of credit to Bianca for that. And to Paul, and just the general organization of the tool, I think it was really easy to pick up on taking measurements. So I had a great time learning about it, and I’m interested to learn more now that I’m on that track.
Virginia’s changing weather and heat inside the instrument enclosure forced careful retakes and documentation. The early readings looked consistent, while calibration and analysis continued. The bigger achievement was already visible: an open tool turned complex remote-sensing work into a field experience new researchers could join and understand.
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