Sciamachy Polarisation Sensitivity

SCIAMACHY (SCanning Imaging Absorption SpectroMeter for Atmospheric CHartographY) is one of the Earth observation research instruments to be included as part of the payload of the ESA (European Space Agency) ENVISAT-1 platform to be launched in the year 2000. The main scientific objective of SCIAMACHY is to measure distributions of a number of chemically important atmospheric trace species on a global basis. SCIAMACHY has a spectrometer and telescope system designed to observe light transmitted through and reflected and scattered from the earths atmosphere over a spectral range of 240 2400 nm. It has an alternate limb and nadir viewing capability, and will be able to perform solar and lunar occultation measurements. A detailed discussion of scientific objectives for SCIAMACHY may be found in [1], [2].