SSI News: [June 2009] The Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded a Phase I SBIR to SSI to develop a Fabry-Perot Spectrometer for Oxygen A-Band Research (FABSOAR). This instrument will offer 100x more throughput than a grating spectrometer thus allowing for 60x faster detection of bright daytime spectra, and even better detection of dimmer twilight spectra. In addition to its role in atmospheric research, this technology has significant commercial potential in both United States Government (USG) and private sector markets. FABSOAR can be tailored for use in a variety of different applications including atmospheric remote sensing, environmental trace-gas and chemical sensing, detection and monitoring, and LIDAR.

SSI News: [May 2009] SSI is proud to unveil two new innovative software packages designed to make Fabry-Perot use easier than ever before. Whether you are at an observatory or in a university laboratory, these new powerful software packages will significantly simplify the use of Fabry-Perot Interferometer systems and facilitate FP fringe analysis. FringeTool allows users to manipulate and analyze FITS-format Fabry-Perot interference fringe images. ImageTool is an integrated image acquisition and analysis software package for astronomy and aeronomy observations using SSI's Space Weather instrumentation. ImageTool also lets users interface with a wide variety of spectroscopic and imaging cameras.

SSI News: [April 2009] SSI is being considered for a 2009 R&D100 Award for its "segmented tunable filter”. This electro-optical filter is an innovation capable of simultaneously collecting spatial and spectral information while providing high spectral resolution and rapid tuning. Based upon Fabry-Perot technology, this next-generation tunable optical filter achieves multiple, independently tunable filter segments on a single substrate. The recently patented technology is intended for use as the key dispersive element in a hybrid multi-spectral imaging system and can be used to create multi-spectral imagers capable of generating small but dense data cubes of very narrow bandwidth spectral images. Winners will be announced in July.

SSI News: [March 2009] SSI is designing a new class of hyperspectral imager (HSI) specifically optimized for CubeSat testbed implementation (C-HSI) based on the robust, very spaceworthy monolithic SHS. Sensing platforms can extract maximum information from target scenes by acquiring high-resolution imagery in simultaneous spatial and spectral dimensions. A HSI acquires multi-wavelength 2-D spatial images by orienting a slit aperture orthogonal to the vehicle velocity vector in a push broom configuration. Distribution of multiple HSIs on a fleet of CubeSats can provide global coverage unavailable with single satellite orbital platforms and provide a novel architecture for multiwavelength target discrimination and 3-D target reconstruction.