Preflight Radiometric Calibration of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory

Abstract

This paper describes the radiometric calibration of the original Orbiting Carbon Observatory. The calibration process required characterizing both the dark current level and gain coefficients of each instrumental channel. The dark response was characterized with extensive testing and revealed some unexpected instrument behavior. The gain coefficients were characterized via illumination of the instrument spectrometers with a laboratory calibrated integrating sphere source. Comparison between the spectrometer output and a calibrated photodiode led to a set of calibration coefficients for each spectrometer channel. The calibration coefficients were validated by a novel approach involving observation of the solar spectrum through a transmission filter. Validation occurred by examination of both the ratio of the filtered to unfiltered spectra and retrievals of geophysical quantities such as surface pressure. The linearity of the calibration was established to approximately 0.2%. Finally, using the calibration data from the integrating sphere, a simple noise model was developed for each channel of the instrument. A summary of the signal to-noise performance is included.