Global Wind Measuring Satellite System (WINDSAT) Feasibility Studies

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Abstract
Since 1976, the Wave Propagation Laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Environmental Research Laboratories has investigated the feasibility of measuring the global wind field using a pulsed coherent laser radar, under a joint program with the U.S. Air Force Space Division Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP). Both the analytical and the hardware feasibilities of a space-borne global wind measuring system (WINDSAT) have been investigated. The vertical distributions of the horizontal wind field, throughout the troposphere with 300-km2 horizontal and 1-km vertical resolution, were required by both NOAA and DoD. Studies were conducted for a 300-km Space Shuttle orbit and an operational polar orbit of 800 km.1,2 A hardware definition study was completed for a Space Shuttle demonstration system.3 The conceptual design of an operational WINDSAT system, mounted on an advanced TIROS-N spacecraft, has recently been completed. The NOAA WINDSAT computer simulation was used to determine the instrument parameters needed as inputs to these studies.

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