Abstract

As part of the European Space Agency's Earth Explorer research mission Aeolus, the global wind distribution in the atmosphere is currently being measured with a satellite based Doppler lidar. For the operational Aeolus-2 mission, a more powerful laser is required which can emit single frequency pulses of 150 mJ energy at a pulse repetition rate of 50 Hz and a wavelength of 355 nm. A reliable operation of more than 5 years, or about 10 Gshots is required. Fraunhofer ILT is currently developing an engineering model (EM) of the laser transmitter in cooperation with Airbus Defense and Space Germany which aims to fulfil the optical and thermomechanical requirements of the future flight model.

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