Concepts for Future Meteorological Earth Observing Sensors

Abstract

The Aerospace Corporation is currently surveying advanced sensor concepts for environmental monitoring from space in the late 1990's and beyond. The parameters to be measured include a wide variety of atmospheric, terrestrial, and oceanographic items. The specific sensor concepts to be described apply to the measurement of clouds, winds, temperature, and humidity. Special emphasis in this presentation will be placed on the subject of clouds. The sensor concepts include: 1) a scanning radiometer for low Earth orbit cloud observation, 2) a meter-class telescope for geosynchronous altitude cloud observation, 3) a millimeter wave radar for cloud top, layer, and base sensing, 4) a stereo imager with a lidar sounder for cloud top sensing, 5) a lidar wind sensor, and 6) a differential absorption lidar (DIAL) for temperature and humidity profiling.