Overview of an Advanced Lidar for an Atmospheric Temperature Profile Measurements Program

The LASE (Laser Atmospheric Sensing Experiment) program is managed by the NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) and is the development of a modular lidar facility which can be operated autonomously from the high altitude (60,000 feet) NASA ER-2 aircraft. Phase I of this program is the development of a lidar instrument system by LaRC to measure atmospheric water vapor profiles. Phase II (also refered to as LASE II) is the development by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), in cooperation with the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales of France, of an advanced lidar instrument system to measure temperature and pressure profiles of the earth's atmosphere. GSFC is developing the solid state (Alexandrite) laser transmitters for both phase I and phase II.