On the benefit of airborne demonstrators for space borne lidar missions

Fix, Andreas; Amediek, Axel; Ehret, Gerhard; Groß, Silke; Kiemle, Christoph; Reitebuch, Oliver; Wirth, Martin

doi:10.1117/12.2296197

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 15 publications

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“…The concept of airborne demonstration based on high commonality with the space hardware design was later also implemented by, e.g., NASA with the Airborne Cloud-Aerosol Transport System (ACATS) [4] as a testbed for the CATS mission on the ISS, and more recently, in China with an airborne demonstrator for the Aerosol and Carbon Detection Lidar (ACDL) mission, which was launched in April 2022 [5]. Other airborne systems were fielded as precursor instruments for technology demonstration and mission preparation as described by Fix et al and Tucker et al in [6] and [7], respectively.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Airborne Doppler wind LIDAR technology demonstration for Aeolus: from pre-launch campaigns to mission performance validation

Lemmerz

Lux

Witschas

et al. 2023

International Conference on Space Optics — ICSO 2022

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In cooperation with the European Space Agency (ESA) and Airbus Defense and Space (DS), the German Aerospace Center (DLR) developed the ALADIN Airborne Demonstrator (A2D). Also operating at 355 nm wavelength, it is the prototype of the first direct-detection Doppler wind lidar instrument in space -ALADIN (Atmospheric Laser Doppler Instrument)the single payload of ESA's Aeolus mission. The A2D was deployed for extensive ground-based measurements and airborne campaigns in the years of mission preparation, with the goal to test operational procedures and refine the algorithms for the processing chain. Experience gained with the A2D supported the ground tests conducted with ALADIN before the launch of Aeolus in 2018. It also laid the foundation for the continuous performance monitoring of the mission, performed within the Data Innovation and Science Cluster (DISC), led by DLR. After launch, DLR executed four airborne campaigns with a focus on validating the Aeolus wind products during different phases of the mission and in diverse geographical and meteorological conditions. During these campaigns, the DLR Falcon aircraft was equipped with the A2D and a high-accuracy scanning heterodyne-detection 2-µm Doppler wind lidar (DWL), used as a reference. Complementary and synergistic results from both DWLs do not only allow for the characterization of the Aeolus and A2D wind errors, but also provide recommendations for the optimization of the Aeolus wind retrieval. Fielding the A2D as a test-bed and validation tool for the Aeolus mission has been a milestone for space lidars and vital for the success of Aeolus, as it has been providing efficient access to instrument specifics in the technological, analytical and scientific domains. The paper covers selected aspects of the airborne technology demonstration program that has supported Aeolus in becoming a successful explorer mission, able to provide high impact data for numerical weather prediction institutions around the world on an operational basis.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Airborne Doppler wind LIDAR technology demonstration for Aeolus: from pre-launch campaigns to mission performance validation

Lemmerz

Lux

Witschas

et al. 2023

International Conference on Space Optics — ICSO 2022

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The absolute frequency reference unit for the spaceborne methane-sensing lidar mission MERLIN

et al. 2019

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Mixing and ageing in the polar lower stratosphere in winter 2015–2016

et al. 2018

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Abstract. We present data from winter 2015–2016, which were measured during the POLSTRACC (The Polar Stratosphere in a Changing Climate) aircraft campaign between December 2015 and March 2016 in the Arctic upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UTLS). The focus of this work is on the role of transport and mixing between aged and potentially chemically processed air masses from the stratosphere which have midlatitude and low-latitude air mass fractions with small transit times originating at the tropical lower stratosphere. By combining measurements of CO, N2O and SF6 we estimate the evolution of the relative contributions of transport and mixing to the UTLS composition over the course of the winter. We find an increasing influence of aged stratospheric air partly from the vortex as indicated by decreasing N2O and SF6 values over the course of the winter in the extratropical lower and lowermost stratosphere between Θ=360 K and Θ=410 K over the North Atlantic and the European Arctic. Surprisingly we also found a mean increase in CO of (3.00 ± 1.64) ppbV from January to March relative to N2O in the lower stratosphere. We show that this increase in CO is consistent with an increased mixing of tropospheric air as part of the fast transport mechanism in the lower stratosphere surf zone. The analysed air masses were partly affected by air masses which originated at the tropical tropopause and were quasi-horizontally mixed into higher latitudes. This increase in the tropospheric air fraction partly compensates for ageing of the UTLS due to the diabatic descent of air masses from the vortex by horizontally mixed, tropospheric-influenced air masses. This is consistent with simulated age spectra from the Chemical Lagrangian Model of the Stratosphere (CLaMS), which show a respective fractional increase in tropospheric air with transit times under 6 months and a simultaneous increase in aged air from upper stratospheric and vortex regions with transit times longer than 2 years. We thus conclude that the lowermost stratosphere in winter 2015–2016 was affected by aged air from the upper stratosphere and vortex region. These air masses were significantly affected by increased mixing from the lower latitudes, which led to a simultaneous increase in the fraction of young air in the lowermost Arctic stratosphere by 6 % from January to March 2016.

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On the benefit of airborne demonstrators for space borne lidar missions

Cited by 3 publications

References 15 publications

Airborne Doppler wind LIDAR technology demonstration for Aeolus: from pre-launch campaigns to mission performance validation

Airborne Doppler wind LIDAR technology demonstration for Aeolus: from pre-launch campaigns to mission performance validation

The absolute frequency reference unit for the spaceborne methane-sensing lidar mission MERLIN

Mixing and ageing in the polar lower stratosphere in winter 2015–2016

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