Spectrum Measurement Techniques for Rocket, Balloon and Satellite Experiments

Abstract

This article reports on new techniques for measuring whole spectra in rocket, balloon, and satellite experiments. The rocket-borne spectrometer was developed for the simultaneous measurement of H2O and O2 concentrations and temperature in the upper atmosphere. Another spectrometer for the rocket experiment measured the rotational profile of the atmospheric absorption band of O2 molecules in the middle atmosphere. In the balloon experiment, the stratospheric aerosol extinction was investigated by the measurement of the near-infrared spectra of the solar radiation. The balloon-borne infrared spectrometer is developed for the measurement of H2O, CO2, and CH4 in the stratospheric atmosphere. The limb sounding infrared spectrometer mounted on the satellite “OHZORA” (EXOS-C) measured the infrared absorption spectra of H2O, CO2, CH4,O3, and N2O in the middle atmosphere. All these spectrometers are based on multichannel spectroscopy by the aid of image devices such as a photodiode array, a CCD, an image intensifier, a vidicon, a pyroelectric array sensor, and so on. The experimental results indicate the ad-vantage to the measurement of the whole spectrum in aeronomic optical experiments.