Stray Light Testing detects the presence of unintended light in an optical system. It is an essential stage in calibrating optical spectrometers to their performance capabilities and mission purpose. This great time-lapse video from Joseph Knuble at NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, and Ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission shows it in action. Here, the team is performing stray light testing of the OCI calibration system using an in-house developed broad-beam laser, and GAToR, the Ground Support Equipment (GSE) Application for Tilt or Rotation developed by Newton, LLC. OCI (Ocean Color Instrument) a highly advanced optical spectrometer built at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) to expand key ocean color data records for Earth’s climate studies. With OCI, the PACE mission helps improve our understanding of how the ocean and atmosphere exchange carbon dioxide with measurements at finer wavelength resolutions than any previous NASA satellite sensors. Follow PACE at https://bit.ly/2VahKPt And learn more about GAToR here https://bit.ly/3i6DSDo #ReachBeyond #PACE #OCI #NASA #GAToR #HighPrecisionGSE
Lead OCI Instrument Systems Engineer, Principle Engineer for Planetary Science Projects Division at NASA GSFC
Cool video of the stray-light test of our OCI solar calibration system using a very broad-beam laser we developed in-house (bonus video: testing the rest of the telescope for light-leaks.) If you are attending the SPIE Sensors & Imaging conference in Edinburgh next week, I will be presenting the OCI solar calibration system architecture and on-orbit results Monday the 16th at 14:40. We also have several other presentations on various aspects of the PACE mission through-out the week. Stop by! #SPIESensors #PACE #KeepingPACE #EarthScience #OceanColor SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics NASA Goddard Space Flight Center