Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding from space, developed by the Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research at Karlsruhe Research Center and Karlsruhe University, operation in space of one exemplar 2002–2012, 175 × 180 × 70 cm (with transportation frame). Deutsches Museum, Munich.
The MIPAS (Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding) Fourier spectrometer was one of ten measuring instruments aboard the European Space Agency’s (ESA) ENVISAT (Environment Satellite) Earth observation satellite. It detected minimal gas concentrations globally, day and night, in the stratosphere and cloud-free troposphere, that is, at altitudes of 5 to 150 kilometers above the Earth’s surface. From 2002 to 2012, MIPAS gathered data used by thousands of scientists worldwide to study climate change and global warming. Both MIPAS and ENVISAT remain in Earth’s orbit. The model displayed here is a 1:1 scale replica. The spectrometer was developed at the Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research of Karlsruhe Research Center and Karlsruhe University. It was initiated by Professor Herbert Fischer in 1988 when Fischer proposed to ESA the use of a cooled Fourier spectrometer on an environmental research satellite. Prior to its integration into ENVISAT, variations of this spectrometer technology were employed on the ground, in aircraft, and borne by high-altitude research balloons. as