BackForwardInstrument:  MIGHTI 

Instrument details
Acronym MIGHTI
Full name Michelson Interferometer for Global High-resolution Thermospheric Imaging
Purpose The primary objective of MIGHTI is to determine thermospheric winds and temperatures.
Short description The wind information is determined from the Doppler shift of atomic oxygen airglow emission lines at 557.7 and 630.0 nm, and the temperature from the spectral shape of the O2 A-band emission at 756, 762, 765 and 772.2 nm, Spectral resolution 0.002 nm
Background Heritage of WINDII flown on UARS and SHIMMER flown on STPSat-1
Scanning Technique Limb sounding, vertical electronic scanning by CCD, horizontal pointing at 45° and 135° from the flight direction. Wind measured between 90 and 300 km altitude (day), and between 90/105 and 200/300 km (night). Thermospheric temperature measured in the 90-105 km range.
Resolution Horizontal: <500 km
Coverage / Cycle Latitude limited by the orbital inclination (27°)
Mass Power Data Rate

 

Providing Agency NASA
Instrument Maturity Flown on an R&D satellite
Utilization Period: 2020 to 2024
Last update: 2021-11-27
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
  • Limb sounders
  • Limb sounder
WIGOS Subcomponents
  • Subcomponent 1
  • UV/VIS/NIR sounders, nadir and limb
  • UV/VIS/NIR scanning limb sounder
  • Subcomponent 2
  • UV/VIS/NIR/IR/MW limb sounders
  • UV/VIS/NIR/IR/MW scanning limb sounder
Mission objectives
Primary mission objectives
  • Wind (horizontal)
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
Atmospheric temperature4 - fairLimited to high atmosphere.NIR limb sounding by emission in the O2 A-band around 760 nm. Used for the thermosphere
Wind (horizontal)*4 - fairLimited to high atmosphere.VIS and NIR very-high resolution limb spectrometry. Doppler analysis of oxygen emission lines