Speaker
Description
The brand-new instrument GLORIA-Lite, developed by the Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research (IMKASF) at KIT in close collaboration with the institutes ICE4 and ZEA2 at Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ) was launched on board a large stratospheric balloon by a team of the Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES) from the European Space and Sounding Rocket Range (ESRANGE, Swedish Space Corporation), on June 22, 2024. It flew at an altitude of 40 km from northern Sweden (Kiruna) to Canada, crossing over the North Atlantic and Greenland and landed safely in the northern part of Baffin Island on June 26. There, the instrument as well as the data collected during the flight were recovered and can be reused for future measurement campaigns upon their return to KIT.
GLORIA-Lite is a completely newly developed instrument designed to continue the decades-long series of measurements by its predecessors GLORIA and MIPAS. The significant reduction in size and weight through the use of the latest infrared sensors, customized electronics and innovative manufacturing techniques also enables the use on transcontinental balloon flights. At its core, GLORIA-Lite features an imaging Fourier-transform spectrometer that analyses infrared emissions by more than 20 different molecules and aerosols in the atmosphere. Our goal is to better understand the various dynamic and chemical processes from the middle troposphere towards deep into the stratosphere. In times of accelerating climate change, it is particularly important to study the impacts on the middle atmosphere and to monitor them through long-term measurement series. For instance, the increasingly frequent and higher-reaching forest fires are contributing to a changes in the entry of air pollution into the stratosphere.
Additionally, GLORIA-Lite serves as a demonstrator for the satellite project CAIRT, which builds on the long-standing joint initiative of KIT and FZJ and has been proposed by an international consortium of ESA. CAIRT (www.cairt.eu) reached the "final" in the 2023 selection process, where the "winner" will be determined from the two remaining instrument proposals in 2025, scheduled to be launched into space in the early 2030s.
