The SRON Earth programme contributes - in international collaboration - to the realization of instruments for satellite remote sensing of the Earth atmosphere with the focus on greenhouse gases (GHG) and aerosol. Looking at the lifecycle of instrument development, our strategic focus is twofold: i) on early concept, technology development and prototype phases and ii) on-ground and in-flight calibration and operation. Where appropriate, SRON also develops enabling flight hardware, such as immersed gratings.

To prepare for the next generation of GHG and aerosol instruments we develop prototypes. These are tested in the lab, field or on airplanes or balloons to simulate/estimate the performance of novel future space instruments in an end-to-end approach up to the quality of the L2 data product. This leads to the specification of instruments that can be built together with (industrial) partners.  An important effort of SRON is the development and application of new smart technology to enable scientific breakthroughs by instruments in a cost-effective way.

Once built, SRON has the expertise to accurately calibrate these instruments. By means of dedicated algorithms, the raw instrument data are converted to radiometrically calibrated or, in case of aerosol, also in polarimetrically calibrated measurements, ready to use for scientific interpretation.

Examples of instrument development and calibration are given in the sub-pages of this menu item. This work is co-funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), the Netherlands Space Office (NSO), the European Space Agency (ESA), and the European Union.