Calibration of the Shuttle Ozone Limb Sounding Experiment (SOLSE) and the Limb Ozone Retrieval Experiment (LORE)

The calibration and characterization of two new instruments designed to retrieve ozone profiles into the lower stratosphere will be presented. These instruments will fly as a single payload on the Space Shuttle Columbia currently scheduled to lift off July 11, 2002. The purpose of SOLSE (Shuttle Ozone Limb Sounding Experiment) and LORE (Limb Ozone Retrieval Experiment) is to provide a thorough test of the limb ozone retrieval technique, which is being employed on several satellite instruments currently deployed or planned for deployment in the near future. OSIRIS (Optical Spectrograph and Infrared Imager System) and SCIAMACHY (Scanning Imaging Absorption Spectrometer for Atmospheric Chartography) are already in orbit, while OMPS (the Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite) is planned as the primary US ozone monitoring instrument in the next decade.. SOLSE is a Czerny-Turner spectrograph utilizing a 1k x 1k cooled CCD at the focal plane and covering the spectral range of 310-380 nm in the ultraviolet and 535-865 nm in the visible to near infrared. LORE is a 5 channel filter radiometer with center band wavelengths of 322, 350, 603, 675, and 1000 nm. The focus of this paper will be on measurements of the SOLSE spectrograph performance in the limb-viewing configuration including stray light rejection, spatial and spectral resolution and absolute radiometric response.