MetOp test setup in LSS

A pre-test configuration inside ESA's Large Space Simulator for the thermal vacuum testing of the MetOp-C payload module, due to undergo testing here next spring.

Next year’s test involves verifying the operation of MetOp’s instruments in space-like vacuum conditions. In order to do so, cryogenically cooled ‘blackbodies’ need to be fitted in front of the instrument openings or radiators.

These include bringing down temperatures to within 40 degrees of absolute zero in the vicinity of MetOp-C’s Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) – an instrument which incorporates a ‘cold box’ to allow precise temperature and humidity sounding of the different layers of the atmosphere. 

Other instruments have their own precise temperature requirements, including some provided by the US NOAA, French space CNES and Eumetsat as well as ESA.