ACES consists of a condenser telescope, Michelson interferometer, achromatic lens, and IR camera. It accepts a stabilized solar feed from the Airborne Stabilized Platform for InfraRed Experiments (ASPIRE). The 2024 campaign demonstrated the instrument concept, and the resulting data enabled the team to develop the processing pipeline and establish precise requirements for the science instrument. The team capitalized on the excitement around the eclipse with outreach to the public, including an open house on the GV and classroom visits in Tucson, AZ. The small, fast-paced project provided training for early-career STEM personnel — the six-person Smithsonian crew that deployed to Tucson for the 2024 eclipse consisted of three early-career scientists and three early-career engineers. The instrument upgrade will provide higher throughput, sensitivity to thermal-IR wavelengths, and a smoother modulation profile in the presence of aircraft motion.
In 2026 and 2027, ACES will survey the entire 1–4 micron (2,500–10,000 cm-1) spectral range at high (0.2 cm-1) spectral resolution, observing neutral helium as well as at least 18 forbidden coronal emission lines. The ACES science missions will address questions related to the strength of different emission lines in different regions of the corona, the relative radiative to collisional excitation in each line, the best temperature and density diagnostics in the passband, and the variation of elemental abundances across the corona.
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