Capabilities / Instruments / TBS

TBS: Baseline Instruments

ARM has a suite of baseline instruments that are typically flown on its tethered balloon system (TBS) missions. Other instruments that may be flown on the TBS are available upon request. Typically, only a subset of the instruments in this second category could be accommodated on a particular mission. In the following table, instruments are designated as baseline (or baseline with DOE’s Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory [EMSL]) or available upon request in the Type column.

Aerosol Properties

Instrument	Property Measured	Type
Printed Optical Particle Spectrometer (POPS) (6 units)	Aerosol size distribution from 140 nm to 3 μm	Baseline
Condensation Particle Counter (CPC) Model 3007 (6 units)	Total aerosol concentration from 0.01 μm to 1 μm	Baseline
Size- and Time-Resolved Aerosol Collector (STAC)	Size- and time-resolved chemical composition from 0.07 µm to 2.3 µm	Baseline with EMSL
Time-Resolved Bulk Aerosol Collector (TBAC)	Time-resolved high-resolution mass spectrometry analysis	Baseline with EMSL
Cascade impactors (6 units)	Size-resolved chemical composition at four cut-off sizes (0.25, 0.5, 1.0, 2.5 μm)	Available upon request
MicroAeth AE-51	Black carbon concentration measured at 880 nm	Available upon request
MicroAeth MA200	Black carbon concentration measured at 880, 625, 528, 470, 375 nm	Available upon request
Ice-nucleating particle sampler	Cumulative immersion freezing mode ice-nucleating particle concentrations per liter of air	Available upon request

Atmospheric State and Aircraft State

Instrument	Property Measured	Type
iMet RSB-1 and RSB-4 radiosondes (multiple)	Pressure, temperature, relative humidity, 3D GPS	Baseline
iMet XQ2 UAV Sensor (multiple)	Pressure, temperature, relative humidity, 3D GPS	Baseline
40C cup anemometers (10 units)	1 Hz horizontal wind speed	Baseline
VectorNav GNSS wind direction (10 units)	1 Hz wind direction	Baseline
RM Young 27106T vertical wind speed (3 units)	1 Hz vertical component of wind velocity	Baseline
LI-560 Trisonica Sphere 3D wind speed (1 unit)	60 Hz 3D sonic wind speed	Available upon request
Sensornet Oryx DTS	Distributed temperature sensing at 2 m spatial resolution and 0.08°C accuracy	Available upon request
Silixa XT DTS	Distributed temperature sensing at 0.5 m spatial resolution and 0.08°C accuracy	Available upon request

Cloud Properties

Instrument	Property Measured	Type
Supercooled liquid water sondes	Cloud supercooled liquid water content in g/m³	Available upon request
Video Ice Particle Sampler (VIPS)	Ice particle maximum dimension, width, area, and aspect ratio from 1 µm to 5 mm	Available upon request

Gas Phase Properties

Instrument	Property Measured	Type
Fielded Remote Organic Sampling Technology (FROST) Sampler	Identification and concentration of volatile organic compounds on LECO GC-TOFMS > 1 picogram	Available upon request
Time-Resolved Automated Volatile organic compounds Sampling system (TRAVIS)	Chemical analysis using thermal desorption GC-MS	Baseline with EMSL