FAR-ULTRAVIOLET IMAGING SPECTROGRAPH AND SCANNING GRATING SPECTROMETERS FOR THE EMOTE-ATMOSPHERIC-AND-IONOSPHERIC-DETECTION-SYSTEM

The Remote Atmospheric and Ionospheric Detection System (RAIDS) experi ment is an optical remote sensing platform consisting of eight sensors , (spectrographs, spectrometers, and photometers) covering the wavelen gth range 550 to 8744 Angstrom. RAIDS employs a mechanical scan platfo rm to view the Earth's limb and measure line-of-sight column emission from tangent altitudes from 50 to 750 km. These measurements provide v ertical profiles of atmospheric dayglow and nightglow from the mesosph ere to the upper regions of the F-region ionosphere. RAIDS will be flo wn on the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) J weather satellite through the auspices of the U.S. Air Force Space Test Program, The RAIDS wavelength and altitude coverage allows remote sensing of the major and many minor constituents in the thermosphere and ionosphere. These measurements will be used as part of a proof of concept for remote sensing of ionospheric and neutral density profiles . The RAIDS database will be used to study composition, thermal struct ure, and couplings between the mesosphere, thermosphere, and ionospher e. RAIDS is a joint venture of the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) and The Aerospace Corporation. We describe the subset of RAIDS instrument s developed at NRL covering the far to near UV regions (1300 to 4000 A ngstrom).