BackForwardInstrument:  SHIMMER 

Instrument details
Acronym SHIMMER
Full name Spatial Heterodyne Imager for Mesospheric Radicals
Purpose Observation of the OH solar resonance fluorescence in the upper stratosphere and mesosphere.
Short description Spatial Heterodyne Spectroscopy interferometer to measure UV emission in the spectral range 307.9-309.4 nm. Resolving power 25,000 enabling the removal of the scattered solar background from the spectra leaving the OH resonance fluorescence from which OH vertical density profiles can be inferred.
Background Follow-on of an experiment carried out on a Shuttle flight.
Scanning Technique Limb sounding. Static interferometer for simultaneous observation of 2.2 km layers in the height range 30-100 km.
Resolution Vertical 2.2 km, horizontal 300 km
Coverage / Cycle Latitudinally limited by the STPSat-1 orbital inclination of 35.4°. Coverage in about 3 days
Mass 31 kg Power 53 W Data Rate

 

Providing Agency NRL
Instrument Maturity Flown on an R&D satellite
Utilization Period: 2007 to 2009
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 No WIGOS subcomponents have been defined.
Mission objectives
Primary mission objectives
  • OH
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
OH*4 - fairLimited to high atmosphere.. Daylight only.UV very-high resolution spectrometry in a band around 308.6 nm.