CHIME (Copernicus Hyperspectral Imaging Mission for the Environment) is one of the six Sentinel Expansion missions currently developed by EU and ESA, to be launched by the end of the decade. It will provide hyperspectral imagery of the Earth's surface. The mission is expected to have a major impact on our understanding of the Earth's land surface and its processes and will help us to address some of the most pressing challenges facing our planet today by supporting a variety of applications including sustainable agriculture, water management, environmental monitoring, or disaster management. A pair of satellites will each carry a high-performance push broom hyperspectral imager able to measure the reflected light from the Earth's surface in 250 spectral bands over a swath of 130 km, at 30m x 30m ground sampling. The spectrometer system (SPS) consists of three identical spectrometer units (SU). The spectrometers are in a unique staggered and offset arrangement, offering a full swath of about 4500 pixels (including overlaps). The main technological challenges of the spectrometer unit, i.e. the broadband grating and the ultra-accurate long slit have been raised up to TRL6 during the Phase B2 and the final design is now frozen. The main optical and thermo-mechanical analyses are completed as well as the test approach. The manufacturing of the first fully functional Engineering Model is on-going.
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