The ACMES Mission: Hyperspectral Earth Imaging in the LWIR and SWIR

The Active Cooling for Multispectral Earth Sensors (ACMES) is a 16U CubeSat technology demonstration mission funded by the NASA Earth Science Technology Office through the In-space Validation of Earth Science Technologies program. ACMES has two technology payloads for Earth IR imaging. The LWIR scientific instrument is the next generation Hyperspectral Thermal Imager (HyTI 2.0). HyTI-2.0 has 25 spectral bands between 8-12.5 mu m, and a ground sampling distance of 45 meters. The SWIR instrument is the Filter Incidence Narrow-band Infrared Spectrometer (FINIS) which is a compact and a lightweight instrument for measuring methane with a moderate spatial resolution (similar to 140 m) and wide field of view (similar to 10 degrees). FINIS can both measure the methane concentration dispersed over large regions and detect point source emissions by observing individual plumes. Key to the ACMES mission is a miniature pumped fluid loop technology developed for CubeSats, the Active Thermal Architecture for removing the waste heat from this similar to 120W spacecraft. ACMES is planned to launch in late 2024 to a similar to 550 km SSO orbit with a one-year technology demonstration followed by an extended mission to collect scientific data with HyTI 2.0 and FINIS. ACMES is a joint development effort between Utah State University, Orion Space Solutions, and the Hawaii Space Flight Laboratory.