The scientific payload is composed of the following instruments:
Scripps-EPIC, a 10-channel spectroradiometer (ultraviolet, visible, and near infrared) that uses a 30 cm telescope and a state of the art detector array (near infrared, visible, and ultraviolet sensitive 2048 x 2048 CCD) to achieve the required sensitivity and spatial resolution. EPIC will send back Earth-reflected radiances that will be transformed into data products (e.g., ozone; aerosols; cloud fraction, thickness, optical depth, and height; sulfur dioxide; precipitable water vapor; volcanic ash; and UV irradiance) every hour for the entire globe at 8-14 km surface resolution. That is, hourly observations from sunrise to sunset instead of just once per day (as with TOMS, MODIS, SeaWifs, etc.). EPIC will make monthly measurements and images of the lunar surface at all 10 wavelengths (317.5 to 905 nm) as part of its calibration procedure.
Scripps-NISTAR is a greatly improved, advanced technology version of the radiometers presently flown to monitor the total solar irradiance and the radiation reflected and emitted by the Earth. It consists of 4 radiometric channels (3 highly accurate and sensitive self-calibrating absolute cavities and 1 photo-diode) that will measure the total UV, visible, and IR radiances (0.2 to 100 microns) reflected or emitted from the entire sunlit Earth. Location at the L-1 observing position will permit long integration times, since no scanning is required. A radiometric accuracy of 0.1% is expected, a factor of about 10 improvement in accuracy (compared to Earth-orbiting satellites). These will be the only measurements of the entire Earth‚s reflected and emitted radiation at the retro-reflection angles. As such, NISTAR will fill in important missing data not obtainable by any Earth-orbiting satellite. NISTAR radiances will be used for: a) estimating the albedo for the Earth-atmosphere system, b) evaluating estimates of the Earth radiation budget (ERB) from other monitoring systems like CERES, c) validating the mean radiance fields that can be directly computed from GCMs, d) evaluating the theoretical ratios of near-infrared to total reflectance, which are of intrinsic interest to the vegetation, cloud and snow/ice communities, and e) attempting to use the thermal infrared as integrative measures of global change.
GSFC Plasma-Mag includes three instruments (Faraday cup, magnetometer, and electron spectrometer) that will obtain measurements of solar wind energetics and magnetic field characteristics at high temporal resolution. This is possible because Triana is a fixed orientation spacecraft (not spin stabilized), always having approximately the same position relative to the Earth-Sun line.