Pre-campaign awareness

Published: April 1 / 2026

Pre-campaign awareness

SCARBOn airborne campaign set to test next‑generation GHG monitoring instrument​

​This week, the SCARBOn project is launching its airborne campaign: a highlight event of our innovation project! A demonstration mission of the NanoCarb instrument (developed by our partners UGA & ONERA), which is made to measure GHG emission in the atmosphere, is designed to validate its performance and calibration. A key phase to advance the NanoCarb sensor towards its future space satellite deployment. 

The campaign starts at our partner ICGC site on Sabadell Airport, Spain with NanoCarb sensor installation on Cessna aircraft and its ground testing for certification. A short test flight near Barcelona will trigger the NanoCarb airborne deployment. For the next phase of the campaign the ICGC aircraft will move to Germany to perform core scientific flights over selected GHG emitter sites.​

Source: SCARBOn website

​The main objective of the campaign is to validate the performance of the NanoCarb sensor in terms of CO2 and CH4 emission monitoring, including its ability to monitor GHG emitting point sources (e.g. power plants). NanoCarb is a lightweight, energy‑efficient spectrometer developed to demonstrate that small instruments can deliver high‑quality atmospheric data. Alongside, a hyperspectral camera will be installed providing additional imagery to help interpret NanoCarb data.

For further reference data, the airborne campaign will be supported by on-ground measurements of our partner BIRA-ISAB with an EM27/SUN FTIR spectrometer, collecting total column concentrations of GHGs using sunlight as a source to detect their characteristic infrared absorption features in the atmosphere.

By comparing the airborne and ground‑based measurements, SCARBOn team will be able to confirm the accuracy of NanoCarb performance and better understand CO₂ emission point sources detection. A prerequisite before future NanoCarb testing in space environment.

NanoCarb instrument; Source: SCARBOn consorcium

The ultimate aim of the SCARBOn project is to prepare a future space satellite mission delivering highly accurate daily global measurements of GHG (namely CO2) to support the development of evidence-based policies and strategies to reduce global warming and its impacts. SCARBOn mission aims to monitor the Green Deal objective for Europe to become the first climate-neutral continent by 2050.

ICGC Aircraft; Source: SCARBOn consorcium