Title :
The Geoscience Laser Altimeter System laser transmitter
Author :
Afzal, R.S. ; Dallas, J.L. ; Yu, A.W. ; Marnakos, W.A. ; Lukemire, A. ; Schroder, B. ; Melak, A.
Author_Institution :
Space Lidar Tech. Center, College Park, MD, USA
Abstract :
Summary form only given.The Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS) scheduled to launch in 2001, is the sole instrument for the ICESat (Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite) mission. GLAS will be a satellite laser altimeter and atmospheric lidar whose primary mission is the global monitoring of the earth´s ice sheet mass balance. GLAS will also provide high precision land topography and global monitoring of aerosols and cirrus cloud heights. The current state-of-the-art in space based solid-state lasers is the Mars Orbiting Laser Altimeter (MOLA), on the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft collecting topography data of Mars. The GLAS laser will generally have an order of magnitude higher performance than MOLA in power, beam quality, etc., and represents the next generation of space-based remote sensing laser transmitters.
Keywords :
aerospace instrumentation; altimeters; optical transmitters; remote sensing by laser beam; Earth ice sheet; Geoscience Laser Altimeter System; ICESat satellite instrumentation; aerosols; atmospheric lidar; cirrus clouds; land topography; solid-state laser transmitter; space-based remote sensing; Clouds; Geoscience; Ice; Mars; Monitoring; Power lasers; Satellites; Solid lasers; Surfaces; Transmitters;
Conference_Titel :
Lasers and Electro-Optics, 2000. (CLEO 2000). Conference on
Conference_Location :
San Francisco, CA, USA
Print_ISBN :
1-55752-634-6
DOI :
10.1109/CLEO.2000.906713
