The engineering model of the AIRS infrared spectrometer, part of ESA’s ARIEL space mission, is currently undergoing testing at LIRA. It has just been installed in LIRA’s SimEnOm cryogenic vacuum chamber, a chamber designed to replicate conditions similar to those in space and to verify that the instrument is functioning correctly.
LIRA is responsible for the entire test campaign : it is providing the equipment, including an optical bench that simulates the telescope, and is carrying out all the measurements to assess the instrument’s performance.
These tests will run until October 2026, with the participation of scientific teams from the CEA, the IAS and the IAP. Once this stage is complete, the instrument will be delivered to the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) in the UK for further testing with all of ARIEL’s integrated systems.
The aim of the ARIEL mission is to study, for the first time in detail, the chemical composition of exoplanets (planets located outside our solar system) and to understand how they are influenced by their stars.
