Speaker
Description
The ARIEL space mission promises to provide the astronomical community with a large uniform sample of exoplanet transmission spectra covering the near- and mid-infrared wavelength range of 1.1 to 7.8 micrometers. In addition to its three spectroscopic channels, ARIEL has three photometric channels that will measure the optical and near-IR flux from the host star with the aim to monitor the spacecraft absolute pointing as well as to correct the exoplanet spectra for the variability of their host star. In order for ARIEL to fulfill its promise, the end-to-end performance is currently being verified at instrument (sub-system) level and will be verified again at the Integrated System level. Stringent requirements in optical and thermal stability come with unique challenges and the test facilities and ground support equipment must reflect those needs. In this presentation I will link the on-going instrument tests to the Integrated System level tests, I will discuss the challenges of System-level requirement verification for the ARIEL mission, and will present the path forward for the ARIEL calibration and performance testing effort.