VIDEO: Hi-Res Infrared Space Sensor Excels In Super-Cold Tests
TIRS inside the opened vacuum chamber
IMAGE BY NASA/Goddard/Bill Hrybyk
NASA has completed the first round of testing on its Thermal Infrared Sensor (or TIRS), to fly out on the next Landsat satellite. Its mission is to map the Earth and keep track of all the water on it, and to do that it needs to be able to operate at super cold temperatures. And by that we mean almost absolute zero.
The device, designed and built at the Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland, USA, is required to function at a rather nippy 43 degrees Kelvin, or -230 degrees celsius. This is to prevent the sensor emitting enough heat to interfere with its own readings.
According to NASA, the device itself is going to be used to track the movement of water through the hydrologic cycle, and it can do so to within 100 metres, which makes it ideal for tracking water movement through individual plantations and agricultural plots. Obviously, this is most going to be used to aid farming in the US, but it would also be very useful here in Australia as well.
The good thing is that TIRS is actually performing beyond the initial expectations, with the sensor cryo-cooler keeping the area around the sensor at that 43K temperature, even when ambient temps shifted.
The next Landsat satellite is due to fly in December 2012.
Check out the below video from NASA to see a bunch of people in whites put TIRS through its paces in a vacuum chamber.
[NASA]