Design and calibration of the solar irradiance monitor

Abstract

The solar irradiance monitor (SIM), with the design accuracy of 5%, used to monitor the secular changes of the total solar irradiance on FY-3 satellite, takes the sun-scanning measurement method on-orbit. Compared to the sun-tracking measurement method, this method simplifies the structure and cuts the cost, but the measuring accuracy is affected by the sun-synchronous orbit, sunlight incidence angle and the installing angle of the SIM in the satellite. Through the ground calibration experiment, studies on the affection of different sunlight incidence angles to the measurement accuracy. First, by the satellite tool kit (STK) simulation software, simulates the orbital parameters of the sun-synchronous satellite, and calculates the Sun ascension and declination at any time. By the orbit coordinate transformation matrix gets the components of the Sun vectors to the axes of the satellite, and base on the components designs the field of view and the installing angles of the SIM. Then, designs and completes the calibration experiment to calibrate the affection of the incidence angles. Selecting 11 different angles between the sunlight and the satellite X-axis, measures the total solar irradiance by the SIM at each angle, and compares to the irradiances of the SIAR reference radiometers, and gets the coefficient curves of the three channels of the SIM. Finally, by the quadratic fitting, gets the correction equations on the incidence angles: 5 2 3 R1 5.71x10-5α2 - 2.453 10-5 α2 1.0302, R2 = 2.84×10-5α2-1.965x10-3α+1.0314 and R3 =1.72x10-5α2-4.184x10-4α+0.9946. The equations will improve the on-orbit measurement accuracy of the solar irradiance, and are very important to the on-orbit data processing after the satellite launched.