BackForwardInstrument:  SAMS 

Instrument details
Acronym SAMS
Full name Stratospheric and Mesospheric Sounder
Purpose Stratospheric and mesospheric profiles of temperature, CH4, CO, CO2, H2O, N2O and NO
Short description Pressure-modulated correlation spectrometer with 9 cells for: temperature and CO2 (4.3 and 15 μm), CO (4.7 μm), CH4 and N2O (7.7 μm), NO (5.3 μm) and H2O (2.7 μm and 25-100 μm). Spectral resolution about 5 cm-1
Background Follow-on of SCR flown on Nimbus-4/5 and PMR flown on Nimbus-6. Now the scanning is limb instead of nadir
Scanning Technique Limb scanning, both vertically (5-km steps) and in azimuth (100 km)
Resolution Vertical: 10 km, horizontal: 300 km along-view
Coverage / Cycle Global in about 3 days for cells of 300 km side
Mass 23.6 kg Power 20 W Data Rate 25 kbps

 

Providing Agency NASA
Instrument Maturity Flown on an R&D satellite
Utilization Period: 1979 to 1994
Last update: 2017-01-17
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 2
  • UV/VIS/NIR/IR/MW limb sounders
  • UV/VIS/NIR/IR/MW scanning limb sounder
Mission objectives
No mission objectives have been defined.
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.

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Note: * Primary mission objective.