BackForwardInstrument:  Carbon Mapper 

Instrument details
Acronym Carbon Mapper
Full name Tanager Carbon Mapper
Purpose To map greenhouse gases specifically carbon dioxide and methane.
Short description A hyperspectral imager covering the range 400-2500 nm with a 5 nm sampling. More details here: https://carbonmapper.org/our-mission/technology/
Background A new instrument development from NASA JPL
Scanning Technique Pusbroom scanning with capability to point to either side of nadir. 18 km swath width.
Resolution 30 m footprint on the ground.
Coverage / Cycle 1200 km strips in length recorded. It targets specific sources of GHG to sample < weekly with full constellation.
Mass Power Data Rate

 

Providing Agency NASA
Instrument Maturity Flown on an R&D satellite
Utilization Period: 2024 to 2029
Last update: 2023-09-19
Detailed characteristics
Satellites this instrument is flying on

Note: a red tag indicates satellites no longer operational, a green tag indicates operational satellites, a blue tag indicates future satellites

Instrument classification
  • Earth observation instrument
  • Passive optical radiometer or spectrometer
  • Cross-nadir shortwave (UV/VIS) sounder
WIGOS Subcomponents
  • Subcomponent 2
  • NIR/SWIR imaging spectroscopy
  • NIR/SWIR imaging spectrometer
Mission objectives
Primary mission objectives
  • CH4 Tropospheric column
  • CH4 column average dry air mixing ratio
  • CO2 Tropospheric Column
Evaluation of Measurements

The following list indicates which measurements can typically be retrieved from this category of instrument. To see a full Gap Analysis by Variable, click on the respective variable.

Note: table can be sorted by clicking on the column headers
Note: * Primary mission objective.
VariableRelevance for measuring this variableOperational limitationsExplanation
CH4 mole fraction1 - primaryCloud sensitive.. Daylight only.Very-high resolution SWIR spectrometry. CH4 lines around 1.65 micrometers. Specifically designed for CH4.
CO2 mole fraction1 - primaryCloud sensitive.. Daylight only.Very-high resolution SWIR spectrometry CO2 lines around 1.6 and 2.1 micrometers. Specifically designed for CO2.