Pre-flight Status and Future Plan of Chinese Carbon Dioxide Satellite (TanSat)

It is well known that the increase in atmospheric CO₂ and CH₄ by anthropogenic activity is the dominant process driving global climate change. The space-based measurements of GHG with high precision, resolution and global coverage are urgently needed to characterize the anthropogenic emission.

To pursuit the sustainable development and quantify the carbon flux, The ministry of science and technology of the people’s republic of China and the Chinese Academy of Sciences had started the Chinese carbon dioxide observation satellite (TanSat) mission 5 years ago, the CO₂ will be measured by a three channel high resolution grating spectrometer(CDS), and the Cloud and Aerosol optical information will be measured by the Cloud and Aerosol Polarization Imager (CAPI).

TanSat is going into the pre-flight phase and is scheduled to be launched in December 2016. The CDS  and CAPI have finished performance test in vacuum vessel during the pre-flight phase, which covers the geometric, radiometric and spectroscopic parameters. It shows the Instrument Line Shape (ILS), Signal Noise Ratio (SNR) and other parameters as well meet the specifications. The TanSat is well calibrated and ready for Launch.

The retrieval algorithm of XCO₂ and surface flux inverse modelling have been developed based on simulations and existing data from GOSAT as an ideal testbed for TanSat data, for example, the XCO₂ was validated with TCCON measurement, and achieves a 1.5 ppm precision. The post-launch activities of early operations, on-orbit calibration operations, data validation and applications have been scheduled. TanSat products will be delivered to the scientific community and common users.