CHAPS: A Compact Hyperspectral Imager for Air Pollution Remote Sensing
Abstract
Current and planned low Earth orbit and geostationary satellite instruments have long provided global surveys, revealing pollution characteristics and trends. We need a robust, sustainable observing strategy, however, for measuring the distribution of air pollution at high spatial and high temporal resolution. The Compact Hyperspectral Air Pollution Sensor (CHAPS) incorporates technologies enabling a sustainable approach to air pollution observation from space. CHAPS is a hyperspectral imager using freeform optics in a form factor suitable for accommodation on a small satellite or hosted payload. It will make measurements of air pollution at unprecedented spatial resolution from low Earth orbit (1 x 1 km2) and will characterize, quantify, and monitor emissions from urban areas, power plants, and other anthropogenic activities. The compact size and relatively lower cost of CHAPS makes a constellation feasible for the first time, with unprecedented spatiotemporal sampling of global point pollution sources. NASA recently funded the development of a CHAPS-Demonstrator (CHAPS-D), which will result in an airborne demonstration of a CHAPS prototype instrument. CHAPS derives heritage from the TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) on the Sentinel-5 Precursor, which uses a freeform mirror telescope. Freeform optics has potentially huge advantages over traditional optical designs, including fewer optical surfaces, less mass and volume, and improved image quality. CHAPS-D combines a radiometrically calibrated freeform hyperspectral imager (300-500 nm @ 0.6-nm resolution) with associated detector and payload electronics within the design constraints of a 6U CubeSat. We present the science context, measurement requirements, and preliminary design of CHAPS-D.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2020
- Bibcode:
- 2020AGUFMA003.0019S
- Keywords:
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- 0305 Aerosols and particles;
- ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE;
- 0345 Pollution: urban and regional;
- ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE;
- 0365 Troposphere: composition and chemistry;
- ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE;
- 3360 Remote sensing;
- ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES