The MARSCHALS (Millimetre-Wave Airborne Receivers for Spectroscopic Characterisation in Atmospheric Limb Sounding) instrument has been designed to be an airborne simulator of a future ESA space instrument and is the first limb-sounder to be explicitly designed and built for the purpose of Upper Troposphere (UT) composition sounding.
The instrument represents the observing parameters of a millimetre-wave instrument as closely as possible and is used from an airborne platform so as to simulate the limb-sounding operation and scan profile of a space instrument. The instrument is designed to measure vertical profiles of ozone, water vapour, carbon monoxide, nitrous oxide, nitric acid and other gaseous components of the Earth's atmosphere.
The instrument was developed and built at RAL Space by the MMT group as contractors to ESA. The Remote Sensing Group at RAL Space are responsible for defining the instrument science objectives and measurement flights, and for data analysis. The mission is also a demonstrator for a future space-borne instrument on missions such as PREMIER, proposed to ESA. Furhter information about MARSCHALS can be found in this document.
RAL Space Involvement
RAL is leading the UK consortium.
Subject
Atmospheric
Main Objectives
Aircraft instrument to measure ozone, water vapour and carbon monoxide in the upper troposphere.
Launch Date
2005
For more information please contact: RAL Space Enquiries
