Concept information
Preferred term
MIPAS
Definition
- The Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding (MIPAS) is a core European Space Agency (ESA) instrument on the ENVISAT spacecraft (launched March 1, 2002). MIPAS is a high-resolution Fourier-transform spectrometer designed to measure the concentration profiles of atmospheric constituents on a global scale. MIPAS will observe the atmospheric emissions from the Earth horizon (limb) throughout the mid-infrared region, which will allow the simultaneous measurement of more than 20 trace gases, including the complete family of nitrogen-oxygen compounds and several CFCs. MIPAS will provide global data coverage, including the polar regions. The instrument measures atmospheric radiation in the spectral-coverage range 4.15 um to 14.6 um. This covers almost the complete mid-infrared region, and thus the emission lines of many atmospheric species are captured. In order to determine the concentration profiles of the atmospheric trace gases, MIPAS will measure a series of spectra from different tangent heights. A basic elevation scan sequence will comprise 16 high resolution spectra or up to 75 spectra with a reduced spectral resolution. A typical elevation scan will start at about 50 km tangent height and descend in 3 km steps to 5 km. It will also be possible to code different elevation scan sequences within the tangent height range in variable step sizes. Measurements are possible in either of two pointing regimes. One pointing regime is rearwards in the anti-flight direction within a 35 ! wide range used for good earth coverage and the polar regions. The second pointing regime is sideways within a 30 ! wide range on the anti-Sun side. This viewing direction is provided for the observation of volcanic eruptions, air-traffic corridors, or concentration gradients across the dusk/dawn terminator. The MIPAS instrument uses eight detectors. The spectral range is split into five bands, where each band is covered by one or two specific detector pairs (A, B1, B2, C and D). In a typical data collection orbit, 16 scene measurements will be recorded in sequence for different atmospheric elevations, followed by two deep space measurements. This takes approximately 80 seconds and repeats for the duration of measurement in the orbit. This gives 75 scans per orbit. One spectrum consists of 35000 samples and takes four seconds. One altitude scan requires 16 spectra measurements and one deep space offset measurement. The altitude scan lasts about 75 seconds. The spectrum is converted in a single interferogram and would be appriximately 62 Kbytes. For more information on MIPAS see: "http://auc.dfd.dlr.de/info/AUC/MIPAS/" For more information on ENVISAT, see: "http://envisat.esa.int/" (en)
Broader concept
- Interferometers (en)
URI
https://gcmd.earthdata.nasa.gov/kms/concept/334b0c35-71bc-4a04-aa14-e0cd35e465a7
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