2019: Small autonomous space instrument on-board a PROBA-satellite, keeping an eye on the amount of ozone.
ALTIUS (Atmospheric Limb Tracker for the Investigation of the Upcoming Stratosphere) will be circling the Earth, keeping a close eye on the amount of ozone in our air. Deeply hidden in the body of the ALTIUS spectrometer is a piece of electronics hardware that truly creates the heartbeat of the instrument.
Using Radio Frequency signals, it allows the eyes of ALTIUS (the Acousto-Optical Tunable Filters) to capture light at any place in the spectral domain. During the pre-development phase, the Engineering service was involved in the design and building of this RF-generator.
Delivery year: 2019
ALTIUS RF Generator early prototype
ALTIUS in orbit. Scheduled for launch in 2026. Credit: ESA.
ALTIUS is a satellite mission proposed by the Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy (BIRA-IASB) and implemented under the European Space Agency (ESA)'s EarthWatch programme. The science team at BIRA-IASB is currently developing the mission's level-2 scientific retrieval algorithms.
The ALTIUS instrument design. Credit: OIP
All details:
- BIRA-IASB ALTIUS mission website
- 2021-2022: ALTIUS: getting ready for Belgium’s O3 mission operations
- 2019-2020: ALTIUS team succeeds at mission preparatory phase activity
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2017-2018: ALTIUS: Atmospheric Limb Tracker for the Investigation of the Upcoming Stratosphere
