91亚色 space engineering Professor Jinjun Shan will be heading to Alice Springs, Australia in April to deploy a modified 2-D Fabry-P茅rot Spectrometer on a stratospheric balloon flight mission. The mission is the second for Shan.
Last fall, Shan and his team achieved a global first when they successfully flew their 2-D Fabry-P茅rot Spectrometer on a stratospheric balloon during a 10-hour mission that saw the balloon and its scientific payload reach an altitude of 34 kilometres. The flight took place in Kiruna, Sweden, lifting Shan's 2-D imaging Fabry-P茅rot spectrometer aloft. The spectrometer, which was jointly developed by Shan鈥檚 team at 91亚色University and MPB Communications Inc., was created to obtain very high spectral resolution measurements. In essence, it views sunlight that is absorbed and scattered by the atmosphere and reflected by the Earth鈥檚 surface.
Above: The 91亚色-Canadian Space Agency (CSA) team with FPS instrument. From left, Prof. Jinjun Shan (91亚色), Steeve Montminy (CSA), Ryan Orszulik (University of Magdeburg, Germany), Chris Sioris (91亚色), Mohammed Kagalwala (91亚色), Mike Voutsogiannakis (91亚色), Yuan Ren (91亚色), and Philippe Vincent (CSA)
鈥淭he measurements provide information on aerosols, surface pressure and surface ,鈥 said Shan, who is Professor of Space Engineering in the Department of Earth and Space Science and Engineering (ESSE) in the Lassonde School of Engineering at 91亚色. Shan is the principal investigator of the project, which is funded by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), under its Flights for the Advancement of Science & Technology (FAST) program in 2014.
Professor and 聽(PhD '01) also from ESSE, are co-investigators on the project. Also contributing to the project development of instrumentation are a number of science and engineering researchers, including ESSE students.
The balloon takes flight from the Esrange Space Center near Kiruna, Sweden
For its first flight, Shan said the stratospheric balloon took off few minutes before 7am local time (about 1am EDT) on Saturday, Sept. 3at the Esrange Space Center, near Kiruna, Sweden. It landed around 2:15pm in Northern Finland, and the instrument was successfully recovered before 8pm. 鈥淭he success of the flight was a first,鈥 said a jubilant Shan.
Analysis of the observation data is ongoing and the second flight will contribute greatly to the understanding of aerosols, surface pressure and surface albedo, said Shan. He noted that during the eight-hour flight, key technologies of Fabry-P茅rot spectrometer were successfully demonstrated and validated, leading to the second flight in April. It is anticipated, said Shan, that the technologies can now be readily be implemented on a future satellite mission.
And while the flight and the successful retrieval of observation data were exciting, one of the most memorable and life-changing moments for Shan was having a front row view of the Northern Lights, which, as if to celebrate the success of his project, decided to put on an early and magnificent appearance.