Space Lidar Developed at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center—The First 20 Years

Author

Xiaoli Sun ; Abshire, James B. ; McGarry, Jan F. ; Neumann, Gregory A. ; Smith, J.C. ; Cavanaugh, J.F. ; Smith, Dante J. ; Zwally, H.J. ; Smith, D.E. ; Zuber, M.T.

Author_Institution

Solar Syst. Exploration Div., Nat. Aeronaut. & Space Adm. (NASA), Greenbelt, MD, USA

Volume

6

Issue

3

fYear

2013

fDate

Jun-13

Firstpage

1660

Lastpage

1675

Abstract

During the past 20 years the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center has developed five different lidar for space, and has successfully used them in orbital missions to map Mars, the Earth, the Moon and Mercury. Although similar in some ways, each of these lidar has had a different combination of measurement requirements, payload constraints, and operational environments. Together they have improved space-based laser measurement technologies and advanced planetary science. This paper gives a brief overview of these instruments, their measurement approaches and designs, and some highlights from their scientific observations.

Keywords

aerospace instrumentation; geophysical equipment; optical radar; remote sensing by laser beam; remote sensing by radar; Earth mapping; Goddard Space Flight Center; Mars mapping; Mercury mapping; Moon mapping; NASA; advanced planetary science; improved space-based laser measurement technologies; measurement approaches; measurement designs; measurement requirements; operational environments; orbital missions; payload constraints; scientiήc observations; space lidar development; Laser altimeter; lidar;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1939-1404

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JSTARS.2013.2259578

Filename

6522192