NASA is interested characterizing the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases critical to global warming phenomena, and their fluxes over time. For this reason, NASA has invested in the Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON), which comprises sun trackers with high resolution Fourier Transform Spectrometers. NASA is currently looking to expand their observation network in order to provide more data for their atmospheric research, but this will require a reduction in spectrometer size and cost. OPTRA proposes to address this need through the development of a novel hybrid spectrometer design that leverages the strengths of Michelson and lamellar grating interferometers, while mitigating their individual weaknesses. The end result will be a compact, rugged, low cost spectrometer capable of the same performance as the current TCCON network. This technology will further be extendable to any applications where spectral data is required, but instrument size and cost are at a premium. Examples include methane pipeline monitoring, volcano emission characterization or UAV-based remote sensing.
