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Instruments > Earth Remote Sensing Instruments > Passive Remote Sensing > Magnetic Field/Electric Field Instruments > FAI

Preferred term

FAI  

Definition

  • FAI was developed by a team of experts in partnership from the University of Calgary, Routes AstroEngineering, Burley Scientific, Keo Consultants Inc, and JENOPTIK Optical Systems, Inc. (Leroy Cogger). FAI images the auroral emission in the near infrared (NIR) and visible (VIS) spectral range. The major scientific objectives of the mission are associated with the Earth's high latitude atmosphere and ionosphere. The first thrust is to investigate the outflow of plasma from the polar regions and the related processes of micro-scale ion acceleration and wave-particle interaction, and auroral excitation. The second thrust is the study of 3D ionospheric irregularities using both active and passive radio techniques. The third emphasis is on the escape of neutral particles from high latitudes caused by temperature enhancements as well as by non-thermal processes. 39) 40) While the spatial resolution capability for most auroral imagers over the past two decades has been of the order of tens of km, the need in the ePOP mission was for an order of magnitude improvement. Likewise, a similar improvement in repetition rate was required. The challenge was met by carefully selecting the spectral elements to image and by taking advantage of the best available technology within the constraint of a very limited budget. The instrument is a coaligned dual-head CCD imaging camera with detectors for NIR and narrow-band VIS (630 nm), intended to operate only over the polar regions of the orbit. The sensitivity of the cameras was maximized through the choice of a CCD detector and optics module. A thinned, backside-illuminated, high quantum efficiency and low noise CCD was selected, the E2V CCD67 in a 256 x 256 pixel array. The quantum efficiency is 0.8 at 630 nm. With two-stage thermoelectric cooling (TEC) of the AIMO (Asymmetric Inverted Mode Operation) device, the dark current can be kept insignificant for normal instrument operating temperatures. An f/4 telecentric lens system is being used in the optics unit with a 5:1 fiber-optic taper to provide an effective f-number of 0.8. Typically, FAI takes imagery at a rate of about 60 0.1 second exposures per minute with the NIR camera, and 1/2 second exposure per minute with the VIS camera. (en)

Broader concept

Change note

  • 2019-04-25 08:02:50.0 [mmorahan] Insert Concept add broader relation (FAI [0c439fcf-b55c-430e-baee-ae047032df46,368673] - Magnetic Field/Electric Field Instruments [449b7d65-85e6-43a5-b87b-1071dc9936b2,346983]);
  • 2019-04-25 08:06:38.0 [mmorahan] insert AltLabel (id: null category: primary text: FAI (Fast Auroral Imager) images the auroral emission in the near infrared (NIR) and visible (VIS) spectral range. language code: en); insert Definition (id: null text: FAI was developed by a team of experts in partnership from the University of Calgary, Routes AstroEngineering, Burley Scientific, Keo Consultants Inc, and JENOPTIK Optical Systems, Inc. (Leroy Cogger). FAI images the auroral emission in the near infrared (NIR) and visible (VIS) spectral range. The major scientific objectives of the mission are associated with the Earth's high latitude atmosphere and ionosphere. The first thrust is to investigate the outflow of plasma from the polar regions and the related processes of micro-scale ion acceleration and wave-particle interaction, and auroral excitation. The second thrust is the study of 3D ionospheric irregularities using both active and passive radio techniques. The third emphasis is on the escape of neutral particles from high latitudes caused by temperature enhancements as well as by non-thermal processes. 39) 40) While the spatial resolution capability for most auroral imagers over the past two decades has been of the order of tens of km, the need in the ePOP mission was for an order of magnitude improvement. Likewise, a similar improvement in repetition rate was required. The challenge was met by carefully selecting the spectral elements to image and by taking advantage of the best available technology within the constraint of a very limited budget. The instrument is a coaligned dual-head CCD imaging camera with detectors for NIR and narrow-band VIS (630 nm), intended to operate only over the polar regions of the orbit. The sensitivity of the cameras was maximized through the choice of a CCD detector and optics module. A thinned, backside-illuminated, high quantum efficiency and low noise CCD was selected, the E2V CCD67 in a 256 x 256 pixel array. The quantum efficiency is 0.8 at 630 nm. With two-stage thermoelectric cooling (TEC) of the AIMO (Asymmetric Inverted Mode Operation) device, the dark current can be kept insignificant for normal instrument operating temperatures. An f/4 telecentric lens system is being used in the optics unit with a 5:1 fiber-optic taper to provide an effective f-number of 0.8. Typically, FAI takes imagery at a rate of about 60 0.1 second exposures per minute with the NIR camera, and 1/2 second exposure per minute with the VIS camera. language code: en); insert WeightedRelation (id: null related concept uuid: 66f5d236-40fb-4a41-96a4-761d48103765 relationship type: null relationship value: null generated by: null);

URI

https://gcmd.earthdata.nasa.gov/kms/concept/0c439fcf-b55c-430e-baee-ae047032df46

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