Current development status of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory instrument optical design

Robert Haring; Randy Pollock; Brian Sutin; David Crisp

doi:10.1117/12.617706

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29 August 2005 Current development status of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory instrument optical design

Robert Haring, Randy Pollock, Brian Sutin, David Crisp

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Proceedings Volume 5883, Infrared Spaceborne Remote Sensing 2005; 58830C (2005) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.617706
Event: Optics and Photonics 2005, 2005, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory, OCO, is a NASA Earth System Science Pathfinder (ESSP) mission to measure the distribution of total column carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere from an earth orbiting satellite. NASA Headquarters confirmed this mission on May 12, 2005. The California Institute of Technology's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is leading the mission. Hamilton Sundstrand is responsible for providing the OCO instrument. Orbital Sciences Corporation is supplying the spacecraft and the launch vehicle. The optical design of the OCO is now in the detail design phase and efforts are focused on the Critical Design Review (CDR) of the instrument to be held in the 4th quarter of this year. OCO will be launched in September of 2008. It will orbit at the head of what is known as the Afternoon Constellation or A-Train (OCO, EOS-Aqua, CloudSat, CALIPSO, PARASOL and EOS-Aura). From a near polar sun synchronous (~1:18 PM equator crossing) orbit, OCO will provide the first space-based measurements of carbon dioxide on a scale and with the accuracy and precision to quantify terrestrial sources and sinks of CO₂. The status of the OCO instrument optical design is presented in this paper. The optical bench assembly comprises three cooled grating spectrometers coupled to an all-reflective telescope/relay system. Dichroic beam splitters are used to separate the light from a common telescope into three spectral bands. The three bore-sighted spectrometers allow the total column CO₂ absorption path to be corrected for optical path and surface pressure uncertainties, aerosols, and water vapor. The design of the instrument is based on classic flight proven technologies.

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Robert Haring, Randy Pollock, Brian Sutin, and David Crisp "Current development status of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory instrument optical design", Proc. SPIE 5883, Infrared Spaceborne Remote Sensing 2005, 58830C (29 August 2005); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.617706

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