Astronomical instrument flies to NASA for earth studies 22 December 2014

A prototype instrument designed and built at Edinburgh's UKATC (UK Astronomy Technology Centre) is on its way to NASA to help improve understanding of the earth's natural carbon cycle.

Supported by NERC (the Natural Environment Research Council), researchers from the Universities of Leicester and Edinburgh are due to use the new instrument to measure the emission and uptake of greenhouse gases.

Understanding these gases is a prerequisite for managing future levels of carbon dioxide to support effective international agreements and national emission reduction programmes.

UKATC engineers – who are part of the STFC (Science and Technology Facilities Council) – normally design and build spectrometers to study planetary and galaxy formation, but have applied similar instrument techniques to build these new ultra low-noise, high-resolution spectrometers.

The prototype, built at the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh, is for the GHOST (GreenHouse Observations of the Stratosphere and Troposphere) project.

It will sit in the belly of a NASA Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle, at altitudes up to 20,000m, above the troposphere, for just over a day on one tank of fuel.

"To make GHOST work on the aircraft we had to take into account extreme pressure, temperature and vibrational variations, which we wouldn't have to consider when building instruments for a telescope," states Andy Vick, innovations manager at STFC's UKATC facility.

"Then [we had to] make the instrument operate autonomously, so that even if direct communication with the instrument is lost it will still take useful scientific data," he continues.

"In addition, we have worked with Leicester scientists to develop qualification and calibration methods that can work in the laboratory or on a desert airstrip."

Dr Hartmut Boesch, science lead at the University of Leicester, says 'GHOST is a truly unique instrument and, thanks to its innovative technology, will allow us for the first time to observe the total amount of the key carbon gases – carbon dioxide, methane and carbon monoxide – at the same time.

"This, combined with the capability of the Global Hawk to fly for over a day, will give us an unprecedented view on the atmosphere.'

"The shipping of GHOST to NASA is an important milestone in transferring technology developed for astronomy to innovative instruments for earth observations," comments UKATC director prof Gillian Wright.

"It will offer the UK additional capabilities to deploy GHOST or similar instruments on our own national airborne research platforms."

Brian Tinham

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