Abstract
The composite infrared spectrometer (CIRS) of the Cassini mission to Saturn has two interferometers covering the far- IR (FIR) and mid-IR (MIR) wavelength region. The instrument is aligned at ambient temperature, but operates at 170 Kelvin and has challenging interferometric alignment tolerances. Interferometric alignment sensitivity tests of the CIRS FIR breadboard indicated that he instrument was sensitive to alignment perturbations in the few arc second regime. Early cryogenic testing indicated that the instrument structure was not stable during cryogenic cycling; therefore, remote alignment of the FIR channel beamsplitter was implemented to recover modulation efficiency. The hardware developed to facilitate the in situ alignment at cryogenic temperatures is described, as are the results of several thermal cycles.
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