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About Odin
Odin was a multinational atmosphere-studying satellite mission which launched on 20 February 2001
After 25 years of operation, the satellite re-entered Earth's atmosphere on 3 August 2026. It completed 135,000 orbits and collected over 3.5 million atmospheric profiles during its lifetime.
| Orbit Height | 620 km |
| Orbit Type | Sun-synchronous polar |
| Orbit Inclination | 98.2° |
Odin is part of ESA's Third Party Missions programme, in which ESA has an agreement to distribute data products from the mission.
Odin Objectives
The Odin mission objectives were mainly astronomy and aeronomy applications (atmospheric research: observation of stratospheric ozone chemistry, mesospheric ozone science, summer mesospheric science, coupling of atmospheric regions).
Odin Instruments
SMR (Submillimeter wave Radiometer)
The SMR onboard Odin was a passive microwave limb sounder.
| Type | Single sideband heterodyne receivers (use of InP material) |
| Frequencies | 118.25 - 119.25 GHz, 486.1 - 503.9 GHz, 541 - 580.4 GHz |
| Bandwidth | 100 MHz to 1 GHz |
| Resolution | 0.1 MHz to 1 MHz |
| Sensitivity | 1 K in 1 MHz with S/N = 5 after 15 minutes |
| Mixers | Cooled Schottky mixers |
| Local Oscillators | LO based on Gunn diodes and frequency multipliers |
| LNA | Cooled HEMT low noise amplifiers |
| Spectrometers | two hybrid autocorrelators and one AOS (Acousto-Optic Spectrometer) |
OSIRIS (Optical Spectrograph and Infrared Imaging System)
OSIRIS was an ultra violet/visible light/infra red limb sounder.
| UV/VIS Spectrograph | |
| Wavelength | 280 - 800 nm |
| Wavelength Resolution | 1 nm from 300-450 nm, < 2nm from 450-800 nm |
| Slit Orientation | perpendicular to the orbit plane (horizontal) |
| FOV | 0.02º (vertical) x 0.75º (horizontal) corresponding to 1 km x 40 km on Earth |
| Spatial Resolution | 1 km at the limb |
| Pointing Direction | aligned with SMR boresight |
| AD Converter | 14 bit |
| Detector Type | Si CCD array (1353 x 286 pixels) |
| Species to be detected | O3, NO2, BrO, OCLO, O2, aerosols |
IR Imager | |
| Bandpass filter center wavelengths | 1.263 µm, 1.273 µm, 1.520 µm |
| Bandwidth (FWHM) | 10 nm (1.263 and 1.273), 40 nm (1.520) |
| FOV | 118 km (vertical) x 2 km (horizontal) |
| Spatial Resolution | 1 km in the vertical direction |
| Telescope Aperture | 23 mm diameter |
| Detector Type (linear arrays with hybrid multiplexers) | 3 InGaAs, each detector has 128 pixels |
| Detector Pointing Direction | in the orbit plane (vertical) |
| Detector Temperature | -40ºC (or less) |
| Temperature stability during exposure | ±0.1ºC |
Odin Data
DATA COLLECTIONS
The following data collections are available for the Odin mission: