NASA Logo

NTRS

NTRS - NASA Technical Reports Server

Back to Results
Passive Measurement of CO2 Column from an Airborne PlatformWe are in the third and final year of our IIP funding to develop a sensor for very precise determination of the CO2 Column. Global measurements of this sort from a satellite platform are needed to improve our understanding of the global carbon budget. In previous reports to this meeting we have described the method by which this system operates and presented data taken during ground based tests of the instrument. Work in the final year has concentrated on building the flight hardened version of the instrument that will be used in our field trials on the Dryden DC-8. The flight unit represents an integration of three channels into a single instrument. These three channels are the CO2 channel, the oxygen pressure sensing channel, and the oxygen temperature sensing channel. Integration of the three channels into a single unit significantly decreases the size of the instrument. The flight unit also employs more rugged optical mounts and integrated optical shielding. Light enters the instrument from below first striking the right angled mirror shown extending over the edge of the platform. The light is then focused through a pinhole to define the instrument field of view, chopped and recollimated. Dichroic mirrors are used to separate the CO2 wavelength from the O2 wavelength and that light is further divided by a 50-50 beamsplitter between the 2 oxygen channels - the pressure channel and the temperature channel. The six white boxes contain the detectors for each of the three channels. The detectors on the left in the photo serve the reference channels and the detectors on the right are for the Fabry-Perots. CO2 is measured by the pair of detectors farthest from the viewer. Pressure via O2 is detected by the central pair of detectors. The closest pair is used to determine temperature via O2.
Document ID
20040084680
Acquisition Source
Goddard Space Flight Center
Document Type
Preprint (Draft being sent to journal)
Authors
Heaps, William S.
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Kawa, S. R.
(NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, MD, United States)
Wilson, Emily
(National Academy of Sciences - National Research Council United States)
Georgleva, Elena
(Science Systems and Applications, Inc. United States)
Date Acquired
September 7, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 2004
Subject Category
Instrumentation And Photography
Meeting Information
Meeting: The 2004 Earth Science Technology Conference
Location: Palo Alto, CA
Country: United States
Start Date: June 22, 2004
End Date: June 24, 2004
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Work of the US Gov. Public Use Permitted.
No Preview Available