Establishing Launch Readiness of NASA ISS Instrument OCO-3

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory — 3 (OCO-3) is a NASA Earth-monitoring instrument, designed and built by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to perform space-based observation of variations of global carbon dioxide (CO2) by sampling its emission sources and gradients from the unique vantage point of the International Space Station (ISS). This paper describes the development and results of the end-to-end verification, validation, and calibration activities that were performed to meet OCO-3's science, functional, and performance requirements prior to launch. The pre-launch activities encompassed a suite of tests and analyses that were performed after instrument assembly and prior to launch vehicle integration to demonstrate launch and mission readiness in terms of ISS compatibility, ground-based instrument calibrations, flight dynamics, environmental integrity, and pointing knowledge and accuracy.