SOLSE-2 - SOLSE

Shuttle Ozone Limb Scattering Experiment (SOLSE)

SOLSE will image the limb of the earth onto a CCD array through a spectrometer, forming a multi-wavelength image - 530 nm to 850 nm, at 0.7 nm resolution. Shorter wavelengths (near 300 nm) which are highly sensitive to ozone, will be used to measure the ozone profile up to 50 km, while longer, less sensitive wavelengths (near 600 nm) will measure ozone in the lower stratosphere, possibly down to 10 km.

Optical Design:

SOLSE is a Czerny-Turner imaging spectrometer designed to produce a high quality image of the limb of the earth while minimizing internal scattered light. The resolution of the vertical image is better than 1 km. Internal scattering can be a problem because there is more than 2 orders of magnitude dynamic range in the image from the short wavelength high altitude part to the long wavelength low altitude part.

Click to enlarge this illustration of the GAS CAN Module.

The Instrument Specifications

Spatial Resolution	0.8 km
Target Spatial Coverage	0-75 km above the Earth's surface
Spectral Coverage	530-850 nm 1^st order, 270-425 nm 2^nd order
Spectral Resolution	0.7nm 1^st order, 0.35 nm 2^nd order
Instrument Field of View	2.3 degrees
Telescope Specs	3 cm diameter doublet lens from Special Optics
Telescope Focal Length	12 cm
Telescope Material	CaF, Fused Silica
Shutter Specs	35 mm aperature shutter from Vincent Associates
Slit Dimensions	50 mm x 5 µm from Reynard Corp.
Grating Specs	holographic grating from Hyperfine
Grating Density	300 lines/mm
Spherical Mirror Specs	collimating mirror - Code 515/GSFC toroidal focussing mirror - J.R. Cumberland Optics
Detector Specs	back thinned CCD array from SITe
Detector Array Size	1024 x 1024 pixels
Detector Pixel Size	24 x 24µm
Detector Readout Noise	7 electrons per pixel

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Responsible NASA Official : Dr. Richard McPeters, Principal Investigator for SOLSE
Last revised: May 22, 2002