Verification of a Spectrometer Breadboard for Characterization of a Future Spaceborne Sensor

Abstract

German Aerospace Center \textbf{DLR} is involved in several hyperspectral missions for Earth remote sensing (e.g. EnMAP) but also for deep space and planetary missions (e.g. the Mercury mission Bepi Colombo). Hyperspectral instruments are designed for characterization of planetary surfaces, oceans and the atmosphere. These spectrometers operate in the visible (VIS), near infrared (NIR), short wave infrared (SWIR) up to thermal infrared (TIR) spectral range with a spectral sampling below $10nm$ up to $100nm$. In the spatial domain these instruments have more then 1000 pixels with a Ground Sampling Distance (GSD) of about 30m up to 90 m. The paper describes the calibration and performance verification of a breadboard model for future spectrometer on space-borne platforms. These procedures include measurements of the dark signal (DS), the linearity and deviation from linearity, noise behavior and signal to noise ratio (SNR) as well as photon transfer curve (PTC), the absolute radiometric calibration and the spectral imaging performance or the spectral resolution.