Water vapor Infrared Sunlight Sounder with Photonic integrated circuits (WISSP)

Sounders measure absorption lines of atmospheric gases and use this to calculate the vertical concentration of those gases and create a 3D image of gas distribution. Typical sounders have limited vertical resolution and high uncertainty due to measuring only a single absorption feature. We propose to develop an improved sounder design using photonic integrated circuits (PICs) ideal for sounding of water vapor, a major driver of weather that is prioritized in the Earth Science Decadal Survey. The PIC sounder (WISSP) will measure individual water vapor absorption lines in visible wavelengths, rather than multi-line “bands” measured by current visible spectrometers, at multiple angles and multiple polarizations to better constrain the vertical reconstruction. Additionally, ongoing parallel work will allow the spectrometer to be trained using lidar data to further improve reconstructions, enabling high transverse and vertical resolution with low uncertainty in a small, low-cost platform.

To better understand and predict weather on Earth, NASA needs to measure 3D images of water vapor with high accuracy and high resolution. The WISSP concept enables this in a small, low cost package by using photonic integrated circuit technology to improve measurement performance.

This is a mature technology (TRL 7+) — the realistic path in is usually NASA's Technology Transfer Program: licensing an existing NASA patent, or a Space Act Agreement to use NASA facilities/expertise directly. NASA also runs a startup licensing program with no upfront fee for companies formed to commercialize a specific NASA technology.

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