Alpha Jet
Alpha Jet

The Alpha Jet Atmospheric eXperiment (AJAX) is an in situ airborne instrument suite deployed on the Alpha Jet research aircraft. It consists of an ozone (O3) monitor, a Picarro greenhouse gas analyzer, a COmpact Formaldehyde FluroescencE Experiment (COFFEE) instrument, and a Meteorological Measurement System (MMS). The O3 monitor is an analyzer manufactured by 2B Technologies that measures O3 at the 185 nm wavelength, in the 0-250 ppm measurement range, and at a typical sampling rate of 0.5 Hz. The Picarro analyzer uses cavity-ring down spectrometry (CRDS) to measure carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and water vapor mixing ratio at every 0.3 Hz. It operates at 1603 nm for CO2 measurements and 1651 nm for CH4 and water vapor measurements. COFFEE measures formaldehyde (HCHO) at 355 nm and has a sampling rate of 1 Hz. MMS provides measurements of the ambient atmospheric temperature, pressure, and the 3-dimensional winds at a rate of 1 Hz.