BackForwardInstrument:  AIRS 

Instrument details
Acronym AIRS
Full name Atmospheric Infra-Red Sounder
Purpose Temperature/humidity sounding, ozone profile and total-column green-house gases
Short description

Grating spectrometer, 2378 channels, resolving power 1200, 4 supporting channels in VIS/NIR [see detailed characteristics below].

More information here
Background

New development
Scanning Technique

Cross-track: 90 samples scanned, swath 1650 km - Along-track: one 13.5-km line each 2.67 s
Resolution 13.5 km IFOV for the spectrometer; 2.3 km IFOV for VIS/NIR channels
Coverage / Cycle Global coverage once/day
Mass 177 kg Power 220 W Data Rate 1.27 Mbps

 

Providing Agency NASA
Instrument Maturity Flown on an R&D satellite
Utilization Period: 2002 to 2026
Last update: 2024-09-30
Detailed characteristics
Spectral range (µm) Spectral range (cm-1) Spectral resolution SNR or NEΔT @ specified input
3.74 - 4.61 µm 2170 - 2674 cm-1 ~ 2.0 cm-1 0.14 K @ 280 K
6.20 - 8.22 µm 1216 - 1613 cm-1 ~ 1.0 cm-1 0.20 K @ 280 K
8.80 - 15.4 µm 650 - 1136 cm-1 ~ 0.5 cm-1 0.35 K @ 280 K
0.41 - 0.44 µm not relevant 30 nm > 100 @ 40 % albedo
0.58 - 0.68 µm not relevant 100 nm > 100 @ 40 % albedo
0.71 - 0.92 µm not relevant 210 nm > 100 @ 40 % albedo
0.49 - 0.94 µm not relevant N/A (broadband) > 100 @ 40 % albedo
Satellites this instrument is flying on

Note: a red tag indicates satellites no longer operational, a green tag indicates operational satellites, a blue tag indicates future satellites

Instrument classification
  • Earth observation instrument
  • Passive optical radiometer or spectrometer
  • Cross-nadir infrared sounder, possibly including VIS channels
WIGOS Subcomponents
  • Subcomponent 1
  • IR hyperspectral sounders [in SSO]
  • IR hyperspectral sounder [in SSO]
Mission objectives
Primary mission objectives
  • Atmospheric temperature
  • Height of the top of PBL
  • Height of the tropopause
  • Integrated Water Vapour (IWV)
  • Specific humidity
  • Temperature of the tropopause
Evaluation of Measurements