Speaker
Description
The MATS (Mesospheric Aerosol/Airglow Tomography and Spectroscopy) satellite was finally launched on 4 November 2022 aboard an Electron rocket from New Zealand. It entered a 585 km sun-synchronous orbit with an LTAN of 17:45. Already a few days after launch first light was seen by the instrument confirming its functionality and ability to collect the planned data.
MATS images the mesosphere region in two wavelength regions ; the UV at 270 and 304 nm and the IR in 4 channels around the 760 nm Oxygen A-band emission, The UV channels are used for studying small scale structures in Noctilucent clouds in the summer mesopause region using tomographic techniques while the IR channels provide global information on wave structures using the nightglow and dayglow emission from O$_2$(b).
We will present early data from the satellite commissioning programme illustrating the performance of the instrument and expected data products.
