The Mesosphere and Climate Experiment (MACE

Mace

A mace is a blunt weapon, a type of club or virge—that uses a heavy head on the end of a handle to deliver powerful blows. A development of the club, the military mace differs from a hammer in that the head of a mace is radially symmetric so that a blow can be delivered just as effectively with any...

) is an instrument proposed by an international science consortium for operation on the International Space Station

International Space Station

The International Space Station is a habitable, artificial satellite in low Earth orbit. The ISS follows the Salyut, Almaz, Cosmos, Skylab, and Mir space stations, as the 11th space station launched, not including the Genesis I and II prototypes...

 ISS

ISS

The ISS is the International Space Station.ISS may also refer to:* I See Stars, an American electronic rock band* ISS A/S, a Danish service company* Idea Star Singer, a Malayalam music reality show by Asianet TV...

. MACE is a multi-channel infrared

Infrared

Infrared light is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength longer than that of visible light, measured from the nominal edge of visible red light at 0.74 micrometres , and extending conventionally to 300 µm...

 radiometer

Radiometer

A radiometer is a device for measuring the radiant flux of electromagnetic radiation. Generally, the term radiometer denotes an infrared radiation detector, yet it also includes detectors operating on any electromagnetic wavelength....

 observing the Earth's atmosphere in Limb-geometry, using modern detector array technology. It follows in the heritage of LIMS and SAMS (Nimbus-7), ISAMS and CLAES (UARS

UARS

UARS may refer to:*Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, an orbital observatory whose mission was to study the Earth’s atmosphere, particularly the protective ozone layer, and which crashed on Earth in 2011...

), SABER (TIMED

TIMED

The TIMED mission was a two year project to study the dynamics of the Mesosphere and Lower Thermosphere portion of the Earth's atmosphere. The mission was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on December 7, 2001 aboard a Delta II rocket launch vehicle...

), MIPAS (ENVISAT

Envisat

Envisat is an Earth-observing satellite. It was launched on 1 March 2002 aboard an Ariane 5 from the Guyana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guyana into a Sun synchronous polar orbit at an altitude of...

), and SMILES (JEM/Kibo

Kibo

Kibo may refer to:*Kibo , Japanese Experiment Module , component of the International Space Station*Kibo , volcanic cone forming the main summit of Mount Kilimanjaro...

). It is designed to observe global distributions of temperature and concentrations of O3, H2O, CH4, CO2, NO, CO, and OH, in the upper stratosphere

Stratosphere

The stratosphere is the second major layer of Earth's atmosphere, just above the troposphere, and below the mesosphere. It is stratified in temperature, with warmer layers higher up and cooler layers farther down. This is in contrast to the troposphere near the Earth's surface, which is cooler...

, the mesosphere

Mesosphere

The mesosphere is the layer of the Earth's atmosphere that is directly above the stratosphere and directly below the thermosphere. In the mesosphere temperature decreases with increasing height. The upper boundary of the mesosphere is the mesopause, which can be the coldest naturally occurring...

 and the lower thermosphere

Thermosphere

The thermosphere is the biggest of all the layers of the Earth's atmosphere directly above the mesosphere and directly below the exosphere. Within this layer, ultraviolet radiation causes ionization. The International Space Station has a stable orbit within the middle of the thermosphere, between...

, including diurnal

Diurnal

Diurnal may refer to:* Diurnal cycle, any pattern that recurs daily** Diurnality, the behavior of animals and plants that are active in the daytime* Diurnal motion, the apparent motion of stars around the Earth...

variations. The proposed mission lifetime is 1 to 3 years, and the launch is proposed for 2017-2018.