BackForwardInstrument:  SMAC 

Instrument details
Acronym SMAC
Full name Synchronous Monitoring Atmospheric Corrector
Purpose To remove atmospheric path radiation and cross radiation effects from aerosols, water vapour and cirrus.
Short description 8 channel VIS/NIR/SWIR imager. See table below for wavelengths.
Background New development
Scanning Technique Pushbroom scanning.
Resolution 8km
Coverage / Cycle Swath 16km
Mass Power Data Rate

 

Providing Agency CAST
Instrument Maturity Flown on operational programme
Utilization Period: 2020 to 2030
Last update: 2023-12-04
Detailed characteristics
Channel Wavelength (nm)

Polarisation channels

 Correction
1 480-500 3 Aerosol
2 540-560 1 Aerosol
3 660-680 3 Aerosol
4 850-890 3 Aerosol
5 900-920 1 Water vapour
6 1360-1400 1 Cirrus
7 1580-1640 3 Surface
8 2210-2290 3 Surface
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
  • Moderate resolution optical imager
WIGOS Subcomponents
  • Subcomponent 1
  • Narrow-band or hyperspectral imagers
  • Narrow-band imager (for ocean colour)
Mission objectives
Primary mission objectives
  • Aerosol Optical Depth
  • Aerosol Optical Depth [550nm]
  • Aerosol type
  • Cloud cover
  • Earth surface short-wave bidirectional reflectance
  • Integrated Water Vapour (IWV)
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
Aerosol column burden5 - marginalCloud sensitive.. Daylight only.VIS (with narrow bandwidth), NIR and SWIR channels
Aerosol effective radius5 - marginalCloud sensitive.. Daylight only.VIS (with narrow bandwidth), NIR and SWIR channels
Aerosol mass mixing ratio5 - marginalCloud sensitive.. Daylight only.VIS (with narrow bandwidth), NIR and SWIR channels
Aerosol Optical Depth*5 - marginalCloud sensitive.. Daylight only.VIS (with narrow bandwidth), NIR and SWIR channels
Aerosol type*5 - marginalCloud sensitive.. Daylight only.VIS (with narrow bandwidth), NIR and SWIR channels
Colour Dissolved Organic Matter (CDOM)5 - marginalCloud sensitive.. Daylight only.A few narrow-bandwidth VIS channels, suitable for a few water types, mainly in open ocean
Leaf Area Index (LAI)3 - highCloud sensitive.. Daylight only.NIR and SWIR channels
Ocean chlorophyll concentration 5 - marginalCloud sensitive.. Daylight only.A few narrow-bandwidth VIS channels, suitable for a few water types, mainly in open ocean
Ocean Diffuse Attenuation Coefficient (DAC)5 - marginalCloud sensitive.. Daylight only.A few narrow-bandwidth VIS channels, suitable for a few water types, mainly in open ocean
Ocean suspended sediments concentration5 - marginalCloud sensitive.. Daylight only.A few narrow-bandwidth VIS channels, suitable for a few water types, mainly in open ocean
Oil spill cover5 - marginalCloud sensitive.. Daylight only.VIS channels with narrow bandwidth
Integrated Water Vapour (IWV)*4 - fairCloud sensitive.. Daylight only.NIR channels in the bands of water vapour around 900 nm and 940 nm