ALTIUS is a limb sounder mission that for the monitoring of the distribution and evolution of stratospheric ozone at high vertical resolution in support of operational services and long term trend monitoring. The ALTIUS mission will provide detailed stratospheric ozone profiles information at high vertical resolution, which adds valuable information to total column ozone used for data...
ALTIUS is an original, groundbreaking mission which answers pressing questions and needs within the atmospheric remote sounding community. The project was proposed by the Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy (BISA) and it is presently implemented as an element of the ESA Earth Watch program. The data processing algorithms will be developed in a collaboration between BISA, the University of...
ALTIUS has been accepted as an Earth Watch mission with the primary objective of measuring concentration profiles of ozone in the stratosphere. But the mission has secondary scientific objectives which, however, are not driving the space segment developments. Recognizing that the instrumental concept of ALTIUS is offering opportunities for measuring at wavelengths relevant for other...
In-flight calibration techniques developed for ALTIUS at the University of Saskatchewan are presented. Simulated observations of the Sun, Moon and high-altitude atmosphere are used to measure instrument photo-response non-uniformity, spatial point spread function, wavelength registration and polarization response. The performance of the simulated techniques is assessed.
ALTIUS (Atmospheric Limb Tracker for the Investigation of the Upcoming Stratosphere) is the upcoming stratospheric ozone monitoring mission of ESA’s Earth Watch program. ALTIUS consists of three 2D high resolution imagers: UV (250-355 nm), VIS (440-675 nm) and NIR (600-1040 nm) channels. Each channel is independent of the others and takes snapshots of the atmosphere in limb geometry at...
Based on highly autonomous and pointing-agile PROBA-NEXT Platform, the ALTIUS satellite embarks an optical instrument made of three independent channels (VIS, UV and NIR) to observe the Earth limb through a field of view of 100 km x 100 km, measuring scattered sun light (bright limb) and atmospheric attenuation (solar and stellar occultation mode) in fully tuneable monochromatic 2-D...
Programmed as an element of ESA’s Earth Watch programme, Atmospheric Limb Tracker for Investigation of the Upcoming Stratosphere (ALTIUS) has been developed as a gap filler mission responding to the urgent need to continue the global, long-term monitoring of stratospheric ozone, other trace gases and aerosols at the vertical resolution of the order of a few km. Scheduled for operation in the...