Development of coherent Doppler lidar for wind profiling

Space-borne Doppler lidar is expected to make wind profile observations on a global scale with an accuracy of 1 to 2 m/s. It may solve the problem of the shortage of the accuracy and distribution in the current wind data. We have studied an eye-safe coherent Doppler lidar (CDL) model that could be deployed on the exposed facilities of Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) and that would meet the science requirements. We have good prospects of 500mJ output at 10Hz in a conduction cooling sub-scale laser, which could be a small model of space-borne laser for JEM/CDL. We are making studies on improving the system's efficiency, reducing its weight, and establishing the fundamental technologies involved. Research on another possibility, e.g. a free flyer, for a demonstration mission besides of JEM/CDL is also valuable to be considered. Development of algorithm for application of coherent lidar system is also in progress through air-borne experiments and ground-based observations.