Abstract

The use of lidars in space to study the Earth's atmosphere and its surface has been proposed for a number of years, but none have flown to date. These proposals date back to the mid-1970's, with U.S. proposals to fly aboard skylab, shuttle, Air Force meteorological satellites, and most recently, NASA's polar orbiting platform and space station. European and Russian proposals over these years have also been put forth. These efforts have mostly proposed a phased approach where the initial flight or flights would concentrate on aerosol and cloud measurements at single or multiple wavelengths. Subsequent flights would incorporate gaseous measurements, usually H2O, utilizing differential absorption techniques. In parallel with these atmospheric measurement efforts, proposals have been put forth to utilize doppler techniques to measure tropospheric winds, and to use accurate ranging techniques to measure crustal deformations, and ice sheet and land topography.

© 1990 Optical Society of America