MIPAS onboard ENVISAT: flight model performance, calibration, and characterization

Abstract

12 The Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding (MIPAS) is a high-resolution Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) limb sounding spectrometer, developed as one of the ESA payload instruments for the ENVISAT satellite. MIPAS is designed to measure concentration profiles of atmospheric constituents on a global scale over a period of several years and constitutes one of three ENVISAT instruments designed primarily for atmospheric chemistry research. The MIPAS Flight Mode (FM) test campaign was completed in 1999 and the instrument was then integrated on the ENVISAT platform, which now undergoes environmental and system testing. The launch is foreseen in 2001 by an ARIANE-5 launcher into an 800 km polar orbit. This paper gives an overview of the MIPAS instrument design, describes its calibration scheme, presents the performance as measured in the test campaigns, summarizes the characterization activities and outlines the principal operations to be performed during MIPAS commissioning in orbit.