Airborne Prism Experiment APEX – a System Development Overview

The Airborne Prism Experiment - APEX is a joint project between Swiss/Belgium and ESA focusing on high accuracy simulation, calibration and validation for spaceborne remote sensing instruments. The instrumentation comprises a hyperspectral imager for various standard aircraft, a so-called Calibration Home Base (CHB) installed at DLR in Oberpfaffenhofen and a complete facility for data processing and archiving. The pushbroom type instrument accommodates two spectrometer channels covering a spectral range from 0.38 up to 2.5 micron. The spatial/spectral resolution amounts to 1000 samples at 28 degree field of view with 312 spectral bands. The overall instrument design and its built-in characterization unit will allow excellent performance stability under various flight conditions. The presentation will focus on the design, development and realization phases of the instrument and discuss various highlights of technical achievements, as there are the infrared HgCdTe detector with extended array format, the thermal/mechanical stabilization of the spectrometer and the realization of the infrastructure for high accuracy characterization and calibration of the instrument.