Calibration of the Planetary Fourier Spectrometer long wavelength channel

The Planetary Fourier Spectrometer (PFS) experiment on board the Mars Express mission has two channels covering the 1.2–5 μm (SWC) and the 5–50 μm (LWC). The Long Wavelength Channel (LWC) measures the thermal emission spectrum of Mars between 200 and 2000 cm−1 with a spectral resolution of 1.4 cm−1, in absence of apodisation. We present here the calibration of this channel and its performance. The instrument calibration has been performed on ground, before launch, in space during Near Earth Verification (NEV) measurements, and at Mars. Special attention has been given to the problem of microvibrations on board the spacecraft. er to obtain correct results, the source-instrument–detector interaction is studied very accurately. The instrument variations during a pericentre pass impose a complex procedure for the LW channel calibration, but fortunately the procedure adopted seems to work well. Samples of the calibrated data are given (as single spectrum and as an average over a few spectra) to show the performance of the experiment and its scientific potentialities.