Title: Thermal Infrared Compact Imaging Spectrometer (TIRCIS): laboratory characterization and first test flights
Presenting Author: Robert Wright
Organization: Hawaii Inst. Geophysics & Planetology
Co-Author(s): Paul Lucey, Sarah Crites, Harold Garbeil, Mark Wood, Eric Pilger

Abstract:
The TIRCIS instrument is an hyperspectral long-wave infrared imager, which uses uncooled microbolometers and an interferometric imaging technique to generate spectral cubes with up to 50 wave-channels in the 8-14 micron interval. The instrument measures 28 x 36 x 56 cm, has a mass of 15 kg, and an average power consumption of 25 W. The instrument was funded via IIP13 and fabrication is now complete. This presentation will provide an update on the laboratory characterization of the instrument performance (e.g. NEDT, SNR), as well as showing bench-top data of representative science targets, including samples of quartz and sulfur dioxide gas, to illustrate the spectra (and images) that the instrument can acquire. Finally, I will present data obtained during TIRCIS' first test flights in Hawaii, which took place in February and April 2017.