A BAFFLE DESIGN FOR AN AIRGLOW PHOTOMETER ON BOARD THE KOREA SOUNDING ROCKET-III

A baffle system for an airglow photometer, which will be on board the Korea Sounding Rocket-III(KSR-III), has been designed to suppress strong solar scattered lights from the atmosphere below the earth limb. Basic principles for designing a baffle system, such as determination of baffle dimensions, arrangement of vanes inside a baffle tube, and coating of surfaces, have been reviewed from the literature. By considering the constraints of the payload size of the KSR-III and the incident angle of solar light scattered from the earth limb, we first determined dimensions of a two-stage baffle tube for the airglow photometer. We then calculated positions and heights of vanes to prohibit diffusely reflected lights inside the baffle tube from entering into the photometer. In order to evaluate performance of the designed baffle system, we have developed a ray tracing program using a Monte Carlo method. The program computed attenuation factors of the baffle system on the order of $10^{-6}$ for angles larger than $10^{\circ}$, which satisfies the requirements of the KSR-III airglow experiment. We have also measured the attenuation factors for an engineering model of the baffle system with a simple collimating beam apparatus, and confirmed the attenuation factors up to about $10^{-4}$. Limitation of the apparatus does not allow to make more accurate measurements of the attenuation factors.