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The Radiation Explorer in the Far Infrared – Prototype for Applications and Development (REFIR-PAD) is a Fourier transform spectroradiometer that has been designed to operate from both stratospheric balloon platforms and the ground. It has been successfully deployed in a stratospheric balloon flight and several ground-based campaigns from high-altitude sites, including the current installation at the Italian–French Concordia Antarctic station. The instrument is capable of operating autonomously with only a limited need of remote control and monitoring and provides a multiyear dataset of spectrally resolved atmospheric downwelling radiances, measured in the 100–1500 cm−1 spectral range with 0.4 cm−1 resolution and a radiometric uncertainty of better than 0.85 mW(m2srcm-1)-1.

The first spectral measurement of Earth's emitted radiation to space in the wideband range from 100 to 1400 cm−1 with 0.5 cm−1 spectral resolution is presented. The measurement was performed from a stratospheric balloon in tropical region using a Fourier transform spectrometer, during a field campaign held in Brazil in June 2005. The instrument, which has uncooled components including the detector module, is a prototype developed as part of the study for the REFIR (Radiation Explorer in the Far InfraRed) space mission. This paper shows the results of the field campaign with particular attention to the measurement capabilities of the prototype. The results are compared with measurements taken by IASI-balloon (Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer – Balloon version), aboard the same platform, and with forward model estimations. The infrared signature of clouds is observed in the measurements.