The mechanical and thermal setup of the GLORIA spectrometer

Abstract

The novel airborne Gimballed Limb Observer for Radiance Imaging of the Atmosphere (GLORIA) measures infrared emission of atmospheric trace constituents. GLORIA comprises a cooled imaging Fourier transform spectrometer, which is operated in unpressurized aircraft compartments at ambient temperature. The whole spectrometer is pointed by the gimbal towards the atmospheric target. In order to reach the required sensitivity for atmospheric emission measurements, the spectrometer optics needs to operate at a temperature below 220 K. A lightweight and compact design is mandatory due to limited space and high agility requirements. The cooled optical system needs to withstand high pressure and temperature gradients, humidity, and vibrations. A new cooling system based on carbon dioxide and liquid nitrogen combined with high-performance insulation has been developed to meet the mechanical, thermal, and logistical demands. The challenging mechanical and spatial requirements lead to the development of a novel rigid linear slide design in order to achieve the large optical path difference for high spectral resolution. This paper describes the mechanical and thermal setup of GLORIA and presents the performance results on two different research aircrafts.