Abstract

LAWS, a facility instrument for the Earth Observation System (EOS), is being designed to measure line-of-sight wind velocities throughout the troposphere (see Figure 1). Horizontal winds will then be derived from the line-of-sight measurements of aerosol velocities. Our baseline instrument concept is a coherent lidar operating at an 9.11 mm wavelength with a 1.7 m aperture, conically scanning telescope and 3 μs, 20 J pulses. Radiation from the lidar is backscattered by ambient aerosols, collected by the instrument receiver, and heterodyne detected to resolve the wind velocity. Global grid resolution is 100 × 100 km horizontal and 1 km vertical. A polar orbit of 705 km is the mission profile with a 3 to 5 year life span.

© 1991 Optical Society of America