CHAPS Flight Qualification (CHAPS)

The objective of the proposed IIP-Instrument Technology Maturation (ITM) project is to build and flight-qualify a Compact Hyperspectral Air Pollutions Sensor (CHAPS) for future application in low Earth orbit, based on the CHAPS--Demonstrator (CHAPS-D) IIP-2019. Air pollution is responsible for ~7 million premature deaths every year. Past and current low Earth--orbiting satellite observatories provide global surveys of air quality characteristics and trends. New geostationary satellites add diurnal information but lack global coverage. Scientists and policymakers, however, need environmental information at spatial and temporal resolutions comparable to known variability: diurnally and at sub-urban scale. Targeted pollution observations at such spatial and temporal resolutions will better characterize, quantify, and monitor emissions from urban areas, power plants, and other anthropogenic activities, with both scientific and societal benefits. The Decadal Survey calls for a robust, comprehensive observing strategy for the spatial distribution of air pollution at high spatial, high temporal resolution. This will not be feasible in a sustainable way without technological advancements. CHAPS is a compact imaging spectrometer in a form factor suitable for accommodation on a small satellite or hosted payload. Using established differential optical absorption spectroscopy techniques, CHAPS will make science-quality measurements of air pollution at unprecedented spatial resolution from low Earth orbit (1 x 1 km2) and will characterize, quantify, and monitor emissions from urban areas, power plants, and other anthropogenic activities. CHAPS is derived directly from CHAPS-D. The miniaturization of CHAPS-D was possible using freeform optics and additive manufacturing. Freeform optics have potentially huge advantages over traditional optical designs, including reduced mass and volume, while maintaining optical performance. The CHAPS-D mechanical structure and some of its optical elements were fabricated using additive manufacturing (AM). AM also has a number of potential advantages, including reduced mass, greater simplicity, and improved manufacturability. This approach simplifies the construction of the instrument, with features not possible using traditional fabrication approaches, and is enabling for constellations. A CHAPS-D breadboard has been tested extensively, and an airborne version will be tested on the ground and in the air before the proposed ITM project would commence. During the 2-year period of performance of the CHAPS IIP-ITM project, we will fabricate and flight-qualify a space version of CHAPS. The mechanical structure and optics will be reused from the CHAPS-D airborne demonstration, as they are already suitable for space. The CHAPS-D detector will be replaced with a space-qualified sensor, along with electronics and processing hardware, all packaged for accommodation in a CubeSat or similar physical environment. This will raise the TRL from 5 to 6, preparing the compact hyperspectral imaging technology to tackle numerous Earth science objectives. CHAPS complements existing and future trace gas surveyors, such as TROPOMI and TEMPO. The compact size and relatively lower cost of CHAPS also makes a constellation feasible for the first time, with unprecedented spatiotemporal sampling of global point pollution sources. A CHAPS constellation represents a new observing system making science-quality measurements of air pollution, meeting new Decadal Survey requirements. As a constellation or in combination with the larger satellites, CHAPS would address such issues as the short-term evolution of pollution, turbulent mixing of air pollution plumes, ""top-down"" quantification of point-source emissions, and pollution transport and chemical processing. The CHAPS design philosophy is generalizable to other wavelengths between 270 and 2400 nm, making it applicable to a wide variety of Earth science problems.

Increase scientific understanding of natural phenomena using remote sensing.

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