Institute of Space and Atmospheric Studies ISAS Profiles Back to Faculty Profile List

Dr. Adam Bourassa and Dr. Doug Degenstein are both members of the Institute of Space and Atmospheric Studies (ISAS) at the University of Saskatchewan. Dr. Degenstein is the Principal Investigator of the satellite instrument OSIRIS, the Optical Spectrograph and InfraRed Imager System, funded by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and part of the Swedish-led Odin project that primarily investigates the ozone layer and its depletion. Specializing in remote sensing measurement, Dr. Bourassa and Dr. Degenstein use a new technique to observe the side view of sunlight scattered from the atmosphere.

Launched in February 2001 and fully operational in November 2001, OSIRIS was designed for a two year lifetime. Still functional today, the instrument has been invaluable in collecting data to measure changes in the ozone layer for an additional 10 years. Ozone is highly variable and detecting trends in depletion is difficult; however, the long term OSIRIS measurements have become very valuable to the world-wide community as a key data set in monitoring these small but important trends.

The team is hopeful to secure funding with the CSA for a new satellite to further their research.

Dr. Degenstein has been involved with OSIRIS since 1993, working with original Principal Investigator Dr. Ted Llewellyn, Professor Emeritus with the Department of Physics and Engineering Physics, and Dr. Bourassa has been working with OSIRIS since 2001.