The wave front error, with the spectrometer at 300 K, shows excellent optical quality. Wave front error measurements with the spectrometer at 150 K and the focal plane at 58 K are the next steps. AIRS uses a focal plane with 12 arrays, cooled to 55 K using an active cooler. The cooler and the focal plane have been successfully integrated in the engineering model vacuum dewar and tested. This was a major step.
Early results are encouraging.
The build of the FM is paced by the IR focal plane build and test. The ATCF has spatial, spectral, and radiometric measurement capability. The ground support data acquisition station and processing software development are almost complete. The data acquisition hardware and processing software demonstrated their capability in support of the cold engineering model dewar testing. The EM testing will serve to validate these tools and assumptions.