BackForwardInstrument:  SUMER 

Instrument details
Acronym SUMER
Full name Solar UV Measurement of Emitted Radiation
Purpose Observation of plasma flows, temperature and density in the solar atmosphere
Short description UV telescope followed by a grating spectrometer operating in the range 50-161 nm inclusive of the Lyman-alpha line at 121.6 nm. Spectral resolving power: 19,000 to 40,000. Doppler velocities down to 1 km/s can be measured separately for each pixel
Background Part of a package of instruments to observe the solar atmosphere
Scanning Technique Sun pointing from the L1 Lagrange libration point
Resolution 1000 km at Sun surface
Coverage / Cycle Full solar disk at 20 s intervals
Mass Power Data Rate

 

Providing Agency DLR
Instrument Maturity Flown on an R&D satellite
Utilization Period: 1996 to 2014
Last update: 2021-09-29
Detailed characteristics
Satellites this instrument is flying on

Note: a red tag indicates satellites no longer operational, a green tag indicates operational satellites, a blue tag indicates future satellites

Instrument classification
  • Solar and space environment monitors
  • Solar activity monitor
WIGOS Subcomponents
  • Subcomponent 2
  • Solar magnetograph, solar EUV/X-ray imagery and EUV/X-ray irradiance, both on the Earth-Sun line and off the Earth-Sun line
  • Solar EUV spectrometer [from L1, GEO, LEO]
  • Solar EUV imager [from L1, GEO, LEO]
Mission objectives
Primary mission objectives
  • Solar EUV image
  • Solar Lyman-alpha image
Evaluation of Measurements

The following list indicates which measurements can typically be retrieved from this category of instrument. To see a full Gap Analysis by Variable, click on the respective variable.

Note: table can be sorted by clicking on the column headers
Note: * Primary mission objective.
VariableRelevance for measuring this variableOperational limitationsExplanation
Solar EUV flux spectrum2 - very highNo specific limitation.High spectral resolution, moderate dynamic range
Solar EUV image*1 - primaryNo specific limitation.Spectrometry with high spatial resolution
Solar Lyman-alpha flux2 - very highNo specific limitation.H-Ly-alpha at 121.6 nm (EUV/UV boundary)
Solar Lyman-alpha image*2 - very highNo specific limitation.H-Ly-alpha at 121.6 nm (EUV/UV boundary), high spatial resolution