CARIBIC-AMS

Starting in 2013, we developed a fully automated aerosol mass spectrometer for the IAGOS-CARIBIC container. The CARIBIC project (Civil Aircraft for the Regular Investigation of the atmosphere Based on an Instrument Container) which is part of IAGOS operates a set of instruments in a freight container that is flown four times a month onboard a commercial Lufthansa Airbus A340-600. IAGOS-CARIBIC is coordinated by A. Zahn (KIT). The instrument "CARIBIC-AMS" is based on the commercially available miniAMS by Aerodyne Research, Inc., but required several major updates and reconfiguration until it met the needs of the stand-alone, automated operation in the IAGOS-CARIBIC container. After a revision of the IAGOS-CARIBIC container in 2017, the CARIBIC-AMS started regular operation with its first successful flights in October 2018. Unfortunately, Lufthansa stopped operation of the A340-600 in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 situation. Thus, the planned changeover to the new Airbus A350 had to begin earlier than planned and is currently ongoing.

In June 2024, the CARIBIC-AMS is operated on a Learjet during the TPEx campaign.