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SABER
Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband
Emission Radiometry
NASA is funding a 2-year satellite mission to study the atmosphere
called TIMED (Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Energetics and
Dynamics). One of the experiments on the spacecraft is called SABER,
which stands for Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission
Radiometry. SABER's mission is to make measurements of temperature,
ozone, carbon dioxide, water vapor and other trace gases to learn
more about the complex relation of energy transfer between the upper
and lower atmosphere.
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SABER
is one of four instruments on NASA's TIMED (Thermosphere Ionosphere
Mesosphere Energetics Dynamics) Mission. Its goal is to explore
the mesosphere and lower thermosphere globally and achieve a major
improvement in our understanding of the fundamental processes governing
the energetics, chemistry, dynamics, and transport of the atmospheric
region extending from 60 km to 180 km.
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GATS has been contracted by NASA to develop and operate
the systems and software that process the data from the
spacecraft. These tasks specifically are:
- Commanding and monitoring the instrument
from the Payload Operations Center (POC)
- Calibration Data Analysis
- Science Data Processing from Raw data
(Level 0) through Retrieved Constituents (Level 2b)
- Data & Project Information Server
Scientific Goal
To explore the mesosphere and lower thermosphere globally
and achieve a major improvement in our understanding of
the fundamental processes governing the energetics, chemistry,
dynamics, and transport of the atmospheric region extending
from 60 km to 180 km. SABER is one of four instruments on
NASA's TIMED Mission.
Scientific Objectives:
- Study the mesosphere and lower thermosphere structure
including its seasonal, latitudinal and temporal variations.
- Investigate the energetics and distribution of radiatively
active species in the non-LTE environment to understand
the relative importance of radiative, chemical, and dynamical
sources and sinks of energy.
- Analyze the Oy and HOy chemistry and its coupling with
energetics and dynamics.
- Conduct studies of dynamics and transport and their
role in the energy budget.
- Develop a climatology of key atmospheric parameters
in the TIMED core region from 60 to 130 km.
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Key Experiment Features:
- Mathematical inversion of Earth limb emission
vertical profiles measured by a multispectral radiometer
operating in the near to mid-infrared over the range 1.27
µm to 17 µm (7865 cm-1 to 650 cm-1).
- Capability to continuously sound the atmosphere
both night and day is provided by limb emission sounding
permitting diurnal change and polar night studies to be
conducted with daily global coverage.
- Autonomous pressure and altitude registration
and automatic correction for spacecraft motion effects are
performed using two wide and one narrow band CO2 channel
centered in the 15 µm band.
- State-of-the-art mechanical cooling of the
detector focal plane array is employed in order to achieve
high radiometric sensitivity, operational flexibility, and
long experiment life.
- Experiment builds on a rich spaceflight
heritage of limb sounding including the Nimbus-7 LIMS experiment
SAMS, CIRRIS, ATMOS, HALOE, CLAES, ISAMS, and SME. The instrument
design and experiment approach is based directly on the
highly successful LIMS instrument and flight experience
SABER
Web Site
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