Multi-center Airborne Coherent Atmospheric Wind Sensor

In Spring 1992 development began for the Multi-center Airborne Coherent Atmospheric Wind Sensor (MACAWS). The four-year project will culminate in an airborne scanning pulsed CO2 Doppler lidar for multi-dimensional wind and calibrated backscatter measurement from the NASA DC-8 research aircraft. MACAWS is under joint development by the lidar remote sensing groups of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Wave Propagation Laboratory (NOAA), and Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). MSFC is assigned lead responsibility for overall coordination, science definition, and mission planning. Each lidar group is sharing major hardware components and subsystems which, in several instances, have been used in previous ground-based or airborne measurement programs. The principal of operation is similar to that employed by MSFC during previous airborne lidar wind measurements [1-6]. The primary improvements are use of the NOAA Joule-class tunable CO2 laser transmitter, expanded scanning capability, and improved in-flight instrument control and data visualization systems.