Ultraviolet Plume Instrument Description and Plume Data Reduction Methodology

Abstract : The Ultraviolet Plume Instrument (UVPI) is a small plume-tracking instrument flown on the Naval Research Laboratory's Lowpower Atmospheric Compensation Experiment (LACE) satellite, which was launched on 14 February 1990. The UVPI's mission is to collect images of rocket plumes. Missile tracking in the ultraviolet range is advantageous because of extremely low Earth and solar background, extremely sensitive photodetectors that do not require cryogenic cooling, and very high optical resolution that is possible with optics of relatively modest size. The two cameras of the instrument use filters, image intensifiers, and charge-coupled device (CCD) detectors to observe sources in the ultraviolet, a tracker camera for target acquisition, a plume camera with a narrow field of view (0. 184 deg by 0. 137 deg), and four filters for data acquisition. Filters have passbands of 195 to 295 nm, 220 to 320 nm, 235 to 350 nm, and 300 to 320 nm. Rocket stages reaching 1 10-km altitude have been successfully detected and tracked by the UVPI from a range of 450 to 550 km for about 30 seconds. The spectral radiance and spectral radiant intensities of the plumes were extracted for the data by using a reference spectrum characteristic of micron-sized alumina particles at the melting-point temperature.... Ultraviolet plume instrument, Rocket plume spectra, Data processing methodology, UVPI, Plume observations from space, LACE satellite, Ultraviolet sensing, Ultraviolet plume data