Abstract
The Orbiting Carbon Observatory 3 is expected to complete its final thermal vacuum test in April 2018. The test program was largely the same as for OCO-2, where the radiometric, spatial, spectral, and polarimetric properties of the spectrometer were measured. Dozens of requirements were verified, including spectral resolution above 17,000 and absolute radiometric performance to within 5%. Notable changes to the hardware include a different telescope with a wider field of view, context cameras, and a Pointing Mirror Assembly. The instrument was illuminated with its internal calibration lamps, an external integrating sphere traceable to NIST standards, diffuse sunlight, collimated light on movable stages, and tunable lasers. Retrievals of uplooking measurements were validated against a collocated TCCON station.
Preflight Characterization of the OCO-3 Imaging Spectrometer
The Orbiting Carbon Observatory 3 is expected to complete its final thermal vacuum test in April 2018. The test program was largely the same as for OCO-2, where the radiometric, spatial, spectral, and polarimetric properties of the spectrometer were measured. Dozens of requirements were verified, including spectral resolution above 17,000 and absolute radiometric performance to within 5%. Notable changes to the hardware include a different telescope with a wider field of view, context cameras, and a Pointing Mirror Assembly. The instrument was illuminated with its internal calibration lamps, an external integrating sphere traceable to NIST standards, diffuse sunlight, collimated light on movable stages, and tunable lasers. Retrievals of uplooking measurements were validated against a collocated TCCON station.