The Arctic Observing Mission (AOM) is currently under mission concept study by the Government of Canada for potential implementation with prospective U.S. and European partners. It would use two satellites in a Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO) to make geostationary-like observations of greenhouse gases (GHGs), air quality species of interest, meteorology, and space weather over northern regions. An imaging Fourier transform spectrometer (iFTS) has been selected as the technology for GHG observations. To elevate the technology readiness level of the iFTS, the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) has awarded contracts to Canadian industry and academia to advance the technology. An iFTS instrument suitable for sub-orbit demonstration has been built. Calibration techniques and software suites for processing the acquired iFTS image data have been developed. The CSA has flown the iFTS instrument in a stratospheric balloon campaign from its CSA-CNES Stratos Balloon Facility based in Timmins, Ontario, Canada to demonstrate its ability to measure GHGs over the boreal forest from an altitude of 37km. This paper briefly describes the development of the iFTS instrument and its adaptations to the stratospheric balloon platform for sub-orbital flight demonstration. The paper also reports instrument pre- and post-flight calibration, FTS image data processing techniques, retrieval of GHG data products and a brief analysis of these products. The balloon flight demonstration with a sub-optimal geometry and low cost iFTS prototype delivered GHG data products that met all expectations. This work not only elevated the technology readiness level of the iFTS technology, but also provided lessons that greatly benefit the development of the iFTS for the AOM mission.
An instrument concept called the Birefringent Imaging Doppler Wind Interferometer (BIDWIN) is being validated in the
Atmospheric and Space Physics Lab at the University of New Brunswick in collaboration with COM DEV Ltd (Ottawa,
Canada) to determine its capabilities for measuring Doppler wind fields in the Earth’s nightglow. The instrument is
adapted from a similar approach used to obtain two dimensional images of high speed (~1000 m/s) flow fields in
plasmas at the Australian National University. For that application the precision of the wind measurements was not
explored in detail. With BIDWIN, the intent is to obtain ~ 5 m/s precision on each bin of a CCD image of the wind
field. An examination of the instrument concept and sensitivity of the wind measurements made using this approach is
undertaken to determine the feasibility of this criterion. The BIDWIN has the advantage over other instruments that can
be used for a similar purpose (such as the field widened Michelson interferometer and Fabry-Perot interferometer) in that
it has no moving parts, has a large throughput, is light weight and is relatively cheap to construct. In this paper, the
instrument concept is presented and the ideal and non-ideal instrument effects are explored. Calibration measurements
conducted using a proto-type of the instrument are used to verify the instrument concept and confirm the feasibility of
the approach for making atmospheric wind measurements.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.