The proposed ExoMars Climate Sounder instrument

This paper describes the ExoMars Climate Sounder (EMCS) instrument currently under development at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It would be one of five scientific instruments on board the proposed ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) spacecraft of the 2016 Mars Mission. EMCS would image and generate high vertical resolution global thermal/infrared profile maps of temperature, dust, water, CO2, ice, and water vapor. It is a 9 spectral channel infrared radiometer, with its sensory system distributed between two identical, boresighted telescopes. The instrument consists of an Optical Bench (OB), housing the two telescopes, a yoke and gimbal mechanism that would provide articulation for the OB, enabling planet, limb, black space, and instrument-internal calibration target observations, and a mounting bracket that serves as interface to the spacecraft. The paper briefly outlines the proposed mission, observation subsystem and data acquisition technique. It describes the various subsystems of the instrument, which are mechanical, structural, thermal electronics and software.