Airborne direct-detection and coherent wind lidar measurements over the North Atlantic Region during the WindVal campaign in 2015 supporting ESAs Aeolus mission

The launch of the Aeolus mission by the European Space Agency (ESA) is planned for early 2018. The satellite will carry the first wind lidar in space, ALADIN (Atmospheric Laser Doppler INstrument). Its prototype instrument, the ALADIN Airborne Demonstrator (A2D), was deployed during several airborne campaigns aiming at the validation of the measurement principle and optimization of algorithms. In 2015, flights of two aircraft from DLR & NASA provided the chance to compare parallel wind measurements from four airborne wind lidars for the first time.