MicroMAPS CO Measurements over North America during July 2004

1
MicroMaps CO Measurements over North America
during July 2004 Vickie S. Connors, Gao Chen,
Neil C. Coffey, Daniel R. Norfolk, Donald P.
Oliver, Margaret R. Pippin and Glen W. Sachse,
(NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton VA
23681) Patrick E. Hopkins (University of
Virginia, Charlottesville, VA) and Henry G.
Reichle, (Retired, NASA LaRC) William H. Morrow
(Resonance Ltd, Barrie Ontario, Canada) and
Wallace McMillan (University of Maryland,
Baltimore County, MD)
The MicroMAPS instrument is a nadir-viewing, gas
filter-correlated radiometer which operates in
the 4.67 micrometer fundamental band of carbon
monoxide. Originally designed and built for a
space mission, this CO remote sensor is being
flown in support of satellite validation and
science instrument demonstrations for potential
UAV applications. The MicroMAPS CO instrument was
flown for the first time during the Summer-Fall
2004 on-board the Proteus aircraft, which is
owned and operated by Scaled Composites. The
instrument system, flown on Proteus, was designed
by an Aerospace Engineering student team as a
senior design project at Virginia Tech, in
Blacksburg, VA. This proposed design was reviewed
and revised by Systems Engineers at NASA Langley
the final instrument system was integrated and
tested at NASA LaRC in partnership with Scaled
Composites and Virginia Space Grant Consortium,
which supervised the fabrication of the nacelle
which houses the instrument system on the right
rear tail boom of Proteus. Full system
integration and flight testing was performed at
Scaled Composites, in Mojave, in June 2004. Its
successful performance enabled participation in
three international science missions INTEX -NA
over eastern North America in July 2004, ADRIEX
over the Mediterranean region and EAQUATE over
the United Kingdom region in September 2004,
piggy-backing with the IPO-sponsored payload
flown on Proteus. These flights resulted in
nearly 100 hours of science measurements and
in-flight calibrations. In parallel with the
engineering developments, theoretical radiative
transfer models were developed specifically for
the MicroMAPS instrument system at the University
of Virginia, Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
Department by a combined undergraduate and
graduate student team. With techical support from
Resonance Ltd. In June 2005, in Barrie, Canada,
the MicroMAPS instrument was calibrated for the
conditions under which the Summer-Fall 2004
flights occurred. The analyses of the calibration
data, combined with the theoretical radiative
transfer models, provide the first data reduction
for these science flights. These CO measurements
and comparisons with CO data from the NASA DC-8,
coincident MOZAIC data flights and AIRS CO
retrievals will be presented.

• MicroMAPS Specifications and other Details
• Developed under NASA Small Spacecraft
  Technology Initiative in 1996
• mission cancelled in 1998 due to spacecraft
  vendor cost overruns and
• schedule delays
• GFCR with 2 CO (max sensitivity in upper and
  mid-troposphere) gas cells,
• 1 N2O gas cell, and 3 vacuum cells on
  rotating wheel
• Operates in thermal IR at 4.67 mm with 800 m
  IFOV at 65K ft, 650 m at 50K ft
• Dimensions 15 cm x 18 cm x 36 cm Mass 6.5
  kg Power 25 Watts
• Thermal Control Detector 0.75mm PbSe,
  cooled to 70oC
• Data rate 40 bits per second

MicroMAPS Data Retrieval Flow Chart
Theoretical Radiance (L) Calibration ( C) Raw
Signal (S)
Calibration Anaysis for 2004 Flight Conditions
MicroMAPS CO Comparisons during INTEX-NA
NASA DC8 DACOM CO Ascent and Descent Profiles
22July 2004
MicroMAPS 103 ppbv
MicroMAPS 124 ppbv
Refernce Blackbody Source Only
DC8 Descent
MicroMAPS over Salton Sea 12Jun04
With External CO Gas Cell in Path
DC8 Ascent
MicroMAPS Averaging Kernel Uniformly mixed CO at
110 ppbv, surface temperature of 290K, and
instrument temperature of 260 K.
CO 76
MicroMAPS CO Cloud Filtering 25 July 2004
CO 266
JFK-VIE FRA-ATL FRA-IAH ATL-FRA
IAH-FRA MMaps CO avg 88.92 89.06
84.13 94.90 77.33 110 CO s
14.12 17.69 16.65 15.12
13.76 19.7
Altitude (km)
N2O Baseline
Sensitivity
Patrick Hopkins (LARSS UVA Engineering Student)
next to MicroMAPS pod in NASA LaRC Hangar during
INTEX-NA
Theoretical Radiance Calculations for Flight Data
using Calibration Characterization for 2004
Flight Conditions
MOZAIC and MicroMAPS CO Comparisons 19July 2004
Funding for this research is gratefully
acknowledged as coming from NASA/Science Mission
Directorate under NRA -02-OES-06 in support of
INTEX-NA and AURA Validation. MOZAIC CO data
graciously made available by Philippe Nedelec and
Valerie Tholuret, CNRS, Toulouse, France via the
INTEX-NA data archive.