DYNAMIC ELECTROTHERMAL MODEL FOR THE EARTH RADIATION BUDGET EXPERIMENT NONSCANNING RADIOMETER WITH APPLICATIONS TO SOLAR OBSERVATIONS AND EVALUATION OF THERMAL NOISE

A dynamic electrothermal model of the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment total, nonscanning channels has been formulated and implemented as a computer program. This model, which is a modification of an earlier version, is used to simulate two types of solar observations: those obtained through the solar port during solar calibration and those obtained during the satellite pitchover maneuver in which the sun is observed by the radiometer in its Earth-viewing configuration. New results of both simulations are compared with actual flight data. These results show an improved agreement between the simulated and observed radiometer response over previous simulations. The improvement in these severe cases justifies the modification to the model and established its accuracy. Thermal noise has been studied also, using a separate but related model, to evaluate its contribution to the radiative energy absorbed by the active cavity.