Working methods

The study of the Earth’s atmosphere concerns all kind of altitudes, from the Earth’s surface to space. It makes use of various techniques including stratospheric balloons, probes, satellites and ground stations. Also experimentation in laboratories and computer modeling are indispensable tools for these studies.

Stratospheric balloons (.pdf, 52 KB)
Laboratory measurements (.pdf, 36 KB)
Modelling (.pdf, 35 KB)

The researchers of the Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy (BIRA-IASB) participate in major international research programs in order to uncover the secrets of the atmospheres they are studying. They are also developing a lot of instruments for the observation of the different parts of the atmosphere they are interested in.

Amongst the standard techniques used by the researchers, we find:

• spectrometry and
• occultation measurements.

Technical and operational support

Designing experiments, observing, analyzing the collected data, extracting all relevant information from them … The BIRA-IASB disposes of various services supporting researchers in their tasks, namely:

• instrument design and development and
• the B.USOC.