The Space Dynamics Laboratory at Utah State University has built and flown an airborne infrared Hyperspectral Imaging Polarimeter (HIP) as a proof-of-principle sensor for a satellite-based polarimeter. This paper briefly reviews the instrument design that was presented in previous SPIE papers1,2, details the changes and improvements made between the 1998 and 1999 measurements, and presents measurement data from the flights.
Measurement data from a series of flights in 1998 indicated the need for wider-band measurements than could be made with our ferroelectric liquid crystal polarimeter design. For this reason, the existing sensor was modified to use a rotating wire-grid polarization filter. The reasons for this choice, equipment design, and measurement equations will be given. A short description of the 1999 flights aboard FISTA3 (Flying Infrared Signatures Technology Aircraft), an Air Force KC-135 based at Edwards Air Force Base will be given, as well as a small sample of the four-dimensional data set will be presented.