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A joint British and French satellite dedicated to monitoring atmospheric carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas responsible for climate change, has arrived in the UK where assembly, integration and testing will be completed.
Called Microcarb, the mission between the UK space agency and the French space agency, CNES, will be the first European satellite dedicated to measuring atmospheric CO2 from around the world – the main greenhouse gas caused by human activity. The satellite will contribute in time to tracking progress with reducing greenhouse gas emissions required by the Paris Agreement.
Due to launch in 2024, the instrument was built by Airbus France, with pre-flight calibration and validation carried out by the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in Teddington, before being shipped to the UK where Thales Alenia space satellite assembly, integration and completion are carried out. will do Testing at the Science and Technology Council’s RAL Space Test Facility at the Harwell Space Cluster in Oxfordshire.
Image credit: Thales Alenia Space
Microcarbon data will contribute to global efforts to measure how much carbon is being emitted by natural processes and how much carbon is being emitted by human activities. This information will help inform decisions about tackling climate change.
The UK Space Agency has invested £13.9 million in the mission.
Dr Paul Batt, Chief Executive of the UK Space Agency, said:
More than half of critical measurements on climate change rely on satellite data, and microcarb information will be critical. Gaining more accurate knowledge of how much carbon the world’s forests and oceans absorb will provide the reliable information needed to make decisions to combat climate change.
It’s an exciting moment to see the microcarb satellite arrive in the UK. This mission shows what can be achieved by bringing together the best of our skills and expertise, when we collaborate with international partners like CNES.
Director of STFC RAL Space Dr. Sarah Beardsley said:
Achieving net zero is one of the most pressing challenges we face today, and an important part of reaching our collective goal is developing systems that can accurately and reliably monitor carbon emissions.
I am extremely proud that STFC RAL Space has played such an important role in the development of microcarb. The pointing and calibration system we developed for this mission will enable scientists to analyze the carbon cycle in a new level of fine detail, giving us a fuller and clearer understanding of the processes driving climate change.
Image credit: Thales Alenia Space
Andrew Staniland, CEO Thales Alenia Space UK, said:
With the climate crisis at the top of the world agenda, I am proud of the fact that Thales Alenia Space is at the heart of this important collaborative mission between the French and UK space agencies. The fact that it will be the first satellite to be fully assembled and integrated by our assembly, integration and test team in the UK adds to the pride.
We’ve learned about the impact of carbon dioxide on global warming since childhood, but the fact that microcarbs will be able to measure the impact of cities on CO2 production will bring an important step forward in the battle to manage the human impact on us. environment
NPL provides critical pre-launch calibration and validation hardware with metrological input into product quality. This calibration is key to the success of the mission and the accuracy and confidence in the GHG data that the satellite will send back.
NPL CEO Dr Peter Thompson said:
We need to have confidence in the systems and data we use to make informed decisions about climate change. I am delighted that NPL has played such a significant role in the early stages of the microcarb mission, leading towards calibration and validation with our state-of-the-art facilities, and we will continue to be involved in this mission. Advances using our measurement capabilities to input into downstream data.
Experts from the National Center for Earth Observation (NCEO), at the universities of Leicester and Edinburgh, will help develop core data products and translate observations of atmospheric CO2 into maps that show carbon sources and sinks.
MicroCarb will monitor Earth’s atmospheric CO2 from space with extreme precision and detect changes associated with surface emissions and uptake from our cities, forests and oceans around the world. An important feature of the satellite is its special city-scanning observing mode that will allow us to map CO2 distribution in urban areas, which account for the majority of global emissions, and support emissions reduction efforts.
Microcarb’s data will help monitor international progress in meeting the Paris Agreement’s climate goal of limiting global surface warming to below 2ºC above pre-industrial temperatures.
Professor Paul Palmer, UK’s Lead Microcarb Scientist and NCEO Science Director, said:
Microcarb data will play a critical role in extending our current ability to verify global and national emissions reductions of CO2 in response to the demands of the Paris Agreement.
Cities are home to half of the world’s population and are therefore at the forefront of the global challenge to reduce GHG emissions. MicroCarb’s City-Scan observing mode, which can map atmospheric CO2 over cities the size of London and Paris, will provide new information to help cities implement strategies that support sustainable urban development.
Image credit: Thales Alenia Space
UK expertise
Thales Alenia in the UK is responsible for Space Platform Assembly, Integration and Test (AIT), satellite AIT and launch preparation.
National Physical Laboratory (NPL) experts are providing critical pre-launch calibration and validation hardware, applying metrological principles to measured CO2 concentrations, fluxes and sources and sink attribution. . This calibration and validation work is key to the success of the mission and the accuracy and confidence in the GHG data that the satellite will send back.
STFC RAL Space designed and built a pointing and calibration system (PCS) for the microcarb, which feeds light from Earth or from calibration sources into the instrument. PCS will allow the instrument to be pointed at specific targets on the ground, such as cities, to take localized measurements of carbon dioxide emissions from urban areas.
GMV is responsible for the design, implementation and quality assurance of algorithms and operational processors for a number of carbon dioxide data products. Operational processors convert the raw science data generated by the sensing instruments on the satellite into values that can then be used to create climate datasets.
GMV is also responsible for ensuring that the operational processors for this mission can be integrated with the processing infrastructure of the mission partner, the French Space Agency (CNES) as well as the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT).
Drawing on the world-leading expertise of the National Center for Earth Observation at the Universities of Edinburgh (Professor Paul Palmer) and Leicester (Dr Robert Parker), the microcarb science team will translate atmospheric carbon dioxide observations into maps that show carbon emissions and emissions. (Carbon Sources and Sinks). This work will fundamentally improve the current understanding of the carbon cycle and help pave the way towards a measurement verification system to monitor carbon emissions from human activities and natural processes.
UK experts are part of the Greenhouse Gas Team at the National Center for Earth Observation, a UKRI-NERC research center that provides the UK with a world-leading, national capacity in Earth observation data for climate and environmental change; Professor Paul Palmer is the UK and NCEO lead.
The microcarb mission
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