The goal of this program was to design, build, test, and characterize a flight qualified calibration source and monitor for a Dark Energy related experiment: ACCESS - 'Absolute Color Calibration Experiment for Standard Stars'. This calibration source, the On-board Calibration Monitor (OCM), is a key component of our ACCESS spectrophotometric calibration program. The OCM will be flown as part of the ACCESS sub-orbital rocket payload in addition to monitoring instrument sensitivity on the ground. The objective of the OCM is to minimize systematic errors associated with any potential changes in the ACCESS instrument sensitivity. Importantly, the OCM will be used to monitor instrument sensitivity immediately after astronomical observations while the instrument payload is parachuting to the ground. Through monitoring, we can detect, track, characterize, and thus correct for any changes in instrument senstivity over the proposed 5-year duration of the assembled and calibrated instrument.

This annual report provides details on the research conducted at EMSL--the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory in Fiscal Year 2008.