Leading emissions scientists and climate satellite experts from the UK have met to see the French-UK MicroCarb satellite undergo testing.
While the ground-breaking measuring and monitoring instrument and its satellite are being put through their paces at RAL Space on the Harwell Space Campus in Oxfordshire, the French-UK team behind the mission discussed the ‘data exploitation’ phase and the ‘city-mode’ function of the satellite. This will play a crucial role in providing data to monitor emissions of cities around the world, helping to achieve the Paris Agreement target to limit global surface warming to below 2ºC of the pre-industrial temperatures, and provide data for the Global Stocktake.
The collaborative mission to build the first European satellite dedicated to measuring carbon dioxide (CO2) – the main greenhouse gas (GHG) caused by human activity and a key contributor to climate change – was first agreed in 2015 with the mission team coming together in 2017. Due to worldwide launch delays caused by a number of factors, including the war in Ukraine, MicroCarb now has a launch date of 2025.
Due to the covid pandemic and travel restrictions the UK Space Agency and French Space Agency (CNES) celebrated meeting face-to-face for the first time on April 20th [2023] at Harwell. They were told that the solar array integration had been completed successfully. MicroCarb has also passed the challenging but essential vibration testing – in which the assembled instrument and satellite are placed on a ‘shaker table’ in the clean room, which simulates the intense vibrations of the launch.
A key new role assigned to the UK is that the National Centre for Earth Observation (NCEO) will deliver the mission’s Solar Induced Fluorescence (SIF) retrieval algorithm, based on expertise from University of Leicester. The SIF signal is a proxy for photosynthetic activity and can provide key information on the carbon cycle, complementing that from CO2 observations.
Harshbir Sangha, Missions and Capabilities Delivery Director for Earth Observation and Low-Earth Orbit Assets at the UK Space Agency, said at the meeting:
“MicroCarb is an amazing mission, this as a strong collaboration with CNES around such an important issue as climate change. Thank you to all the team members who are bringing the vision to reality. We all work together, we support each other and challenge each other to achieve the very best. Globally MicroCarb it will provide the data that we need. Thank you so much for all of your efforts.”
Caroline Laurent, Director of Orbital Systems at CNES, added:
“Climate is one of the biggest priorities for CNES. I am happy to be here with you and congratulations to you all for all your work and still more to come. I am sure you [scientists] will work wonderfully with the data.”
Watch the MicroCarb explainer video to find out more: