Airborne Campaigns for the Validation of ESA's Aeolus Mission

Knowledge of vertical wind profiles on a global scale is a priority need to improve the quality of numerical weather prediction (NWP). The Earth Explorer mission Aeolus from ESA, to be launched in 2018, will for the first time deliver such profiles based on the spaceborne wind lidar ALADIN (Atmospheric LAser Doppler INstrument). The ALADIN Airborne Demonstrator (A2D) which was developed at DLR is the key instrument for the planned calibration and validation activities as it features a high degree of commonality with the satellite instrument (e.g. the same laser wavelength of 355 nm and a highly representative optical and electronic receiver design)