6179 20230126134856.0 10.1117/12.2622144 DOI SCART-2023-0091 Schifano, L. Towards a demonstrator setup for a wide-field-of-view visible to near-infrared camera aiming to characterize the solar radiation reflected by the Earth. 2022 Climate change monitoring is still a major challenge, which is currently typically addressed using radiometers monitoring the radiative fluxes at the top of the atmosphere. To improve the current state-of-the-art monitoring instruments, we pursue the development of novel space instrumentation, combining a radiometer with two additional imagers, improving the spatial resolution to a few kilometers allowing scene identification, while enabling a spectral distinction between the reflected solar radiation (RSR) using a visible to near-infrared (400 – 1100 nm) camera, and the Earth’s emitted thermal radiation using a thermal infrared (8 – 14 μm) camera. In this paper, we present a novel camera design optimized towards RSR monitoring, while targeting a compact design and minimizing the number of aspheric components. More specifically, our optimized imaging design shows a wide field of view (138°) enabling to observe the Earth from limb to limb, a compact volume fitting within 1 CubeSat Unit (1U), a wide spectral range (400 – 900 nm) to retrieve the RSR with a certainty of more than 95%, a spatial resolution better than 5 km at nadir, and a close to diffraction-limited performance. After optimization towards the nominal design, possible design alternatives are considered and discussed, enabling a cost-efficient design choice. Following, the mechanical and optical design tolerances are evaluated using a statistical Monte Carlo analysis, indicating a robust and tolerant design that can be manufactured using ultra-precision diamond tooling. Finally, stray-light analysis was performed enabling evaluation of ghost reflection and evaluating the necessity of an anti-reflection coating. Consequently, we can conclude our proposed imaging designs show a promising performance optimized towards Earth observation, paving the way to an improved climate change monitoring. STCE Duerr, F. Berghmans, F. Dewitte, S. Smeesters, L. SPIE Optics, Photonics and Digital Technologies for Imaging Applications VII 12138 2022 111-120 steven.dewitte@ksb-orb.be https://www.spiedigitallibrary.org/conference-proceedings-of-spie/12138/121380H/Towards-a-demonstrator-setup-for-a-wide-field-of-view/10.1117/12.2622144.short?SSO=1 published in NONREF