The Activity Cavity Radiometer Irradiance Monitor experiment on the Solar Maximum Mission has demonstrated the state-of-the-art accuracy and precision for solar observations of active cavity radiometer (ACR) sensors in space flight. The design and operational advantages of the solar ACR sensors have been successfully applied to wide and medium field of view earth-viewing sensors on the Earth Radiation Budget (ERB) experiments. If the sensitivity of the solar ACR sensors were increased by between one and two orders of magnitude, the advantages could be applied to the narrow field of view observations of future ERB-type experiments, replacing the inaccurate and unreliable scanning systems in current use. The objective of this project was to modify the ACR solar sensor cavity design and electronics to achieve such an improvement in performance without sacrificing accuracy.During Phase I (not complete at this writing), the cavity of a new detector was designed and procured, the electronic boards for the detector and the electronics for testing were fabricated, and the software for test and analysis was developed.Potential Commercial Application:Applications would include any optical radiation measurement tasks that require state-of-the-art accuracy and precision at the irradiance levels corresponding to 1 to 100 percent of the total solar irradiance (1368 watts/square meter).STATUS: Phase I Only
