Blackbody sources within 100 - 1000 K temperature range for precision calibration of space-borne instruments

Paper reviews high-precision unique blackbodies within 100 to 1000 K temperature, designed at the All-Russian Research Institute for Opto-Physical Measurements (VNIIOFI, Russia) within the last decade for preflight calibration of space-borne radiometric instruments. The required accuracy and long-term stability of measurement account for 0.1% and 0.02% per decade within the 0.2 to 3 µm spectral region; and 0.1K and 0.01K per decade for 3 to 15 µm region. Series of high-precision BBs - as operating at fixed temperatures provided by phase transitions of pure metals, so as the variable-temperature ones within a 100 to 1000K temperature range, were designed for calibration of spaceborne IR sensors and high-precision radiometry at such research organizations as German Aerospace Center (DLR) and PTB (Germany), NPL (UK), Space Dynamics Lab (USA), NEC TOSHIBA Space Systems and JAXA (Japan), Keldysh Space Center (Russia), NIM and IAO (China). I. PROBLEM FORMULATION