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By NASA
5 Min Read NASA 3D Wind Measuring Laser Aims to Improve Forecasts from Air, Space
3D wind measurements from NASA's Aerosol Wind Profiler instrument flying on board a specially mounted aircraft along the East Coast of the U.S. and across the Great Lakes region on Oct. 15, 2024. Credits: NASA/Scientific Visualization Studio Since last fall, NASA scientists have flown an advanced 3D Doppler wind lidar instrument across the United States to collect nearly 100 hours of data — including a flight through a hurricane. The goal? To demonstrate the unique capability of the Aerosol Wind Profiler (AWP) instrument to gather extremely precise measurements of wind direction, wind speed, and aerosol concentration – all crucial elements for accurate weather forecasting.
Weather phenomena like severe thunderstorms and hurricanes develop rapidly, so improving predictions requires more accurate wind observations.
“There is a lack of global wind measurements above Earth’s surface,” explained Kris Bedka, the AWP principal investigator at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. “Winds are measured by commercial aircraft as they fly to their destinations and by weather balloons launched up to twice per day from just 1,300 sites across the globe. From space, winds are estimated by tracking cloud and water vapor movement from satellite images.”
However, in areas without clouds or where water vapor patterns cannot be easily tracked, there are typically no reliable wind measurements. The AWP instrument seeks to fill these gaps with detailed 3D wind profiles.
The AWP instrument (foreground) and HALO instrument (background) was integrated onto the floorboard of NASA’s G-III aircraft. Kris Bedka, project principal investigator, sitting in the rear of the plane, monitored the data during a flight on Sept. 26, 2024. NASA/Maurice Cross Mounted to an aircraft with viewing ports underneath it, AWP emits 200 laser energy pulses per second that scatter and reflect off aerosol particles — such as pollution, dust, smoke, sea salt, and clouds — in the air. Aerosol and cloud particle movement causes the laser pulse wavelength to change, a concept known as the Doppler effect.
The AWP instrument sends these pulses in two directions, oriented 90 degrees apart from each other. Combined, they create a 3D profile of wind vectors, representing both wind speed and direction.
We are measuring winds at different altitudes in the atmosphere simultaneously with extremely high detail and accuracy.
Kris bedka
NASA Research Physical Scientist
“The Aerosol Wind Profiler is able to measure wind speed and direction, but not just at one given point,” Bedka said. “Instead, we are measuring winds at different altitudes in the atmosphere simultaneously with extremely high detail and accuracy.”
Vectors help researchers and meteorologists understand the weather, so AWP’s measurements could significantly advance weather modeling and forecasting. For this reason, the instrument was chosen to be part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Joint Venture Program, which seeks data from new technologies that can fill gaps in current weather forecasting systems. NASA’s Weather Program also saw mutual benefit in NOAA’s investments and provided additional support to increase the return on investment for both agencies.
On board NASA’s Gulfstream III (G-III) aircraft, AWP was paired with the agency’s High-Altitude Lidar Observatory (HALO) that measures water vapor, aerosols, and cloud properties through a combined differential absorption and high spectral resolution lidar.
Working together for the first time, AWP measured winds, HALO collected water vapor and aerosol data, and NOAA dropsondes (small instruments dropped from a tube in the bottom of the aircraft) gathered temperature, water vapor, and wind data.
The AWP and HALO instrument teams observing incoming data on board NASA’s G-III aircraft over Tennessee while heading south to observe Hurricane Helene. Sept. 26, 2024. NASA/Maurice Cross “With our instrument package on board small, affordable-to-operate aircraft, we have a very powerful capability,” said Bedka. “The combination of AWP and HALO is NASA’s next-generation airborne weather remote sensing package, which we hope to also fly aboard satellites to benefit everyone across the globe.”
The combination of AWP and HALO is NASA's next-generation airborne weather remote sensing package.
kris bedka
NASA Research Physical Scientist
The animation below, based on AWP data, shows the complexity and structure of aerosol layers present in the atmosphere. Current prediction models do not accurately simulate how aerosols are organized throughout the breadth of the atmosphere, said Bedka.
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This visualization shows AWP 3D measurements gathered on Oct. 15, 2024, as NASA’s G-III aircraft flew along the East Coast of the U.S. and across the Great Lakes region. Laser light that returns to AWP as backscatter from aerosol particles and clouds allows for measurement of wind direction, speed, and aerosol concentration as seen in the separation of data layers. NASA/Scientific Visualization Studio “When we took off on this particular day, I thought that we would be finding a clear atmosphere with little to no aerosol return because we were flying into what was the first real blast of cool Canadian air of the fall,” described Bedka. “What we found was quite the opposite: an aerosol-rich environment which provided excellent signal to accurately measure winds.”
During the Joint Venture flights, Hurricane Helene was making landfall in Florida. The AWP crew of two pilots and five science team members quickly created a flight plan to gather wind measurements along the outer bands of the severe storm.
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This video shows monitors tracking the AWP science team’s location in the western outer bands of Hurricane Helene off the coast of Florida with views outside of the aircraft looking at turbulent storm clouds on Sept. 26, 2024. NASA/Kris Bedka “A 3D wind profile can significantly improve weather forecasts, particularly for storms and hurricanes,” said Harshesh Patel, NOAA’s acting Joint Venture Program manager. “NASA Langley specializes in the development of coherent Doppler wind lidar technology and this AWP concept has potential to provide better performance for NOAA’s needs.”
The flight plan of NASA’s G-III aircraft – outfitted with the Aerosol Wind Profiler – as it gathered data across the Southeastern U.S. and flew through portions of Hurricane Helene on Sept. 26, 2024. The flight plan is overlaid atop a NOAA Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-16 (GOES) satellite image from that day. NASA/John Cooney The flights of the AWP lidar are serving as a proving ground for possible integration into a future satellite mission.
“The need to improve global 3D wind models requires a space-based platform,” added Patel. “Instruments like AWP have specific space-based applications that potentially align with NOAA’s mission to provide critical data for improving weather forecasting.”
A view of the outer bands of Hurricane Helene off the coast of Florida during NASA’s science flights demonstrating the Aerosol Wind Profiler instrument on Sept. 26, 2024.NASA/Maurice Cross After the NOAA flights, AWP and HALO were sent to central California for the Westcoast & Heartland Hyperspectral Microwave Sensor Intensive Experiment and the Active Passive profiling Experiment, which was supported by NASA’s Planetary Boundary Layer Decadal Survey Incubation Program and NASA Weather Programs. These missions studied atmospheric processes within the planetary boundary layer, the lowest part of the atmosphere, that drives the weather conditions we experience on the ground.
To learn more about lidar instruments at NASA visit:
NASA Langley Research Center: Generations of Lidar Expertise
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Charles G. Hatfield
Science Public Affairs Officer, NASA Langley Research Center
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By NASA
6 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
An astronaut glove designed for International Space Station spacewalks is prepped for testing in a chamber called CITADEL at NASA JPL. Conducted at temperatures as frigid as those Artemis III astronauts will see on the lunar South Pole, the testing supports next-generation spacesuit development.NASA/JPL-Caltech Engineers with NASA Johnson and the NASA Engineering and Safety Center ready an astronaut glove for insertion into the main CITADEL chamber at JPL. The team tested the glove in vacuum at minus 352 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 213 degrees Celsius).NASA/JPL-Caltech A JPL facility built to support potential robotic spacecraft missions to frozen ocean worlds helps engineers develop safety tests for next-generation spacesuits.
When NASA astronauts return to the Moon under the Artemis campaign and eventually venture farther into the solar system, they will encounter conditions harsher than any humans have experienced before. Ensuring next-generation spacesuits protect astronauts requires new varieties of tests, and a one-of-a-kind chamber called CITADEL (Cryogenic Ice Testing, Acquisition Development, and Excavation Laboratory) at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California is helping.
Built to prepare potential robotic explorers for the frosty, low-pressure conditions on ocean worlds like Jupiter’s frozen moon Europa, CITADEL also can evaluate how spacesuit gloves and boots hold up in extraordinary cold. Spearheaded by the NASA Engineering and Safety Center, a glove testing campaign in CITADEL ran from October 2023 to March 2024. Boot testing, initiated by the Extravehicular Activity and Human Surface Mobility Program at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, took place from October 2024 to January 2025.
An astronaut boot — part of a NASA lunar spacesuit prototype, the xEMU — is readied for testing in JPL’s CITADEL. A thick aluminum plate stands in for the cold surface of the lunar South Pole, where Artemis III astronauts will confront conditions more extreme than any humans have yet experienced.NASA/JPL-Caltech In coming months, the team will adapt CITADEL to test spacesuit elbow joints to evaluate suit fabrics for longevity on the Moon. They’ll incorporate abrasion testing and introduce a simulant for lunar regolith, the loose material that makes up the Moon’s surface, into the chamber for the first time.
“We’ve built space robots at JPL that have gone across the solar system and beyond,” said Danny Green, a mechanical engineer who led the boot testing for JPL. “It’s pretty special to also use our facilities in support of returning astronauts to the Moon.”
Astronauts on the Artemis III mission will explore the Moon’s South Pole, a region of much greater extremes than the equatorial landing sites visited by Apollo-era missions. They’ll spend up to two hours at a time inside craters that may contain ice deposits potentially important to sustaining long-term human presence on the Moon. Called permanently shadowed regions, these intriguing features rank among the coldest locations in the solar system, reaching as low as minus 414 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 248 degrees Celsius). The CITADEL chamber gets close to those temperatures.
Engineers from JPL and NASA Johnson set up a test of the xEMU boot inside CITADEL. Built to prepare potential robotic explorers for conditions on ocean worlds like Jupiter’s moon Europa, the chamber offers unique capabilities that have made it useful for testing spacesuit parts.NASA/JPL-Caltech “We want to understand what the risk is to astronauts going into permanently shadowed regions, and gloves and boots are key because they make prolonged contact with cold surfaces and tools,” said Zach Fester, an engineer with the Advanced Suit Team at NASA Johnson and the technical lead for the boot testing.
Keeping Cool
Housed in the same building as JPL’s historic 10-Foot Space Simulator, the CITADEL chamber uses compressed helium to get as low as minus 370 F (minus 223 C) — lower than most cryogenic facilities, which largely rely on liquid nitrogen. At 4 feet (1.2 meters) tall and 5 feet (1.5 meters) in diameter, the chamber is big enough for a person to climb inside.
An engineer collects simulated lunar samples while wearing the Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit spacesuit during testing at NASA Johnson in late 2023. Recent testing of existing NASA spacesuit designs in JPL’s CITADEL chamber will ultimately support de-velopment of next-generation suits being built by Axiom Space.Axiom Space More important, it features four load locks, drawer-like chambers through which test materials are inserted into the main chamber while maintaining a chilled vacuum state. The chamber can take several days to reach test conditions, and opening it to insert new test materials starts the process all over again. The load locks allowed engineers to make quick adjustments during boot and glove tests.
Cryocoolers chill the chamber, and aluminum blocks inside can simulate tools astronauts might grab or the cold lunar surface on which they’d walk. The chamber also features a robotic arm to interact with test materials, plus multiple visible-light and infrared cameras to record operations.
Testing Extremities
The gloves tested in the chamber are the sixth version of a glove NASA began using in the 1980s, part of a spacesuit design called the Extravehicular Mobility Unit. Optimized for spacewalks at the International Space Station, the suit is so intricate it’s essentially a personal spacecraft. Testing in CITADEL at minus 352 F (minus 213 C) showed the legacy glove would not meet thermal requirements in the more challenging environment of the lunar South Pole. Results haven’t yet been fully analyzed from boot testing, which used a lunar surface suit prototype called the Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Unit. NASA’s reference design of an advanced suit architecture, this spacesuit features enhanced fit, mobility, and safety.
In addition to spotting vulnerabilities with existing suits, the CITADEL experiments will help NASA prepare criteria for standardized, repeatable, and inexpensive test methods for the next-generation lunar suit being built by Axiom Space — the Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit, which NASA astronauts will wear during the Artemis III mission.
“This test is looking to identify what the limits are: How long can that glove or boot be in that lunar environment?” said Shane McFarland, technology development lead for the Advanced Suit Team at NASA Johnson. “We want to quantify what our capability gap is for the current hardware so we can give that information to the Artemis suit vendor, and we also want to develop this unique test capability to assess future hardware designs.”
In the past, astronauts themselves have been part of thermal testing. For gloves, an astronaut inserted a gloved hand into a chilled “glove box,” grabbed a frigid object, and held it until their skin temperature dropped as low as 50 F (10 C). McFarland stressed that such human-in-the-loop testing remains essential to ensuring future spacesuit safety but doesn’t produce the consistent data the team is looking for with the CITADEL testing.
To obtain objective feedback, the CITADEL testing team used a custom-built manikin hand and foot. A system of fluid loops mimicked the flow of warm blood through the appendages, while dozens of temperature and heat flux sensors provided data from inside gloves and boots.
“By using CITADEL and modern manikin technology, we can test design iterations faster and at much lower cost than traditional human-in-the-loop testing,” said Morgan Abney, NASA technical fellow for Environmental Control and Life Support, who conceived the glove testing effort. “Now we can really push the envelope on next-generation suit designs and have confidence we understand the risks. We’re one step closer to landing astronauts back on the Moon.”
Through Artemis, NASA will send astronauts to explore the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and build the foundation for the first crewed missions to Mars.
Houston, We Have a Podcast: next-generation spacesuits Why NASA’s Perseverance rover carries spacesuit materials News Media Contact
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By NASA
3 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
One of several NASA distributed sensing ground nodes is set up in the foreground while an experimental air taxi aircraft owned by Joby Aviation sits in the background near NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, on March 12, 2025. NASA is collecting information during this study to help advance future air taxi flights, especially those occurring in cities, to track aircraft moving through traffic corridors and around landing zones.NASA/Genaro Vavuris NASA engineers began using a network of ground sensors in March to collect data from an experimental air taxi to evaluate how to safely integrate such vehicles into airspace above cities – in all kinds of weather.
Researchers will use the campaign to help improve tools to assist with collision avoidance and landing operations and ensure safe and efficient air taxi operations in various weather conditions.
For years, NASA has looked at how wind shaped by terrain, including buildings in urban areas, can affect new types of aircraft. The latest test, which is gathering data from a Joby Aviation demonstrator aircraft, looks at another kind of wind – that which is generated by the aircraft themselves.
Joby flew its air taxi demonstrator over NASA’s ground sensor array near the agency’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California producing air flow data. The Joby aircraft has six rotors that allow for vertical takeoffs and landings, and tilt to provide lift in flight. Researchers focused on the air pushed by the propellers, which rolls into turbulent, circular patterns of wind.
NASA aeronautical meteorologist Luke Bard adjusts one of several wind lidar (light detection and ranging) sensors near NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, on March 12, 2025, in preparation to collect data from Joby Aviation’s experimental air taxi aircraft. NASA is collecting information during this study to help advance weather-tolerant air taxi operations for the entire industryNASA/Genaro Vavuris This rolling wind can affect the aircraft’s performance, especially when it’s close to the ground, as well as others flying in the vicinity and people on the ground. Such wind turbulence is difficult to measure, so NASA enhanced its sensors with a new type of lidar – a system that uses lasers to measure precise distances – and that can map out the shapes of wind features.
“The design of this new type of aircraft, paired with the NASA lidar technology during this study, warrants a better understanding of possible wind and turbulence effects that can influence safe and efficient flights,” said Grady Koch, lead for this research effort, from NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.
Data to Improve Aircraft Tracking
NASA also set up a second array of ground nodes including radar, cameras, and microphones in the same location as the sensors to provide additional data on the aircraft. These nodes will collect tracking data during routine flights for several months.
The agency will use the data gathered from these ground nodes to demonstrate the tracking capabilities and functions of its “distributed sensing” technology, which involves embedding multiple sensors in an area where aircraft are operating.
One of multiple NASA distributed sensing ground nodes is set up in the foreground while an experimental air taxi aircraft owned by Joby Aviation hovers in the background near NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, on March 12, 2025. NASA is collecting information during this study to help advance future air taxi flights, especially those occurring in cities, to track aircraft moving through traffic corridors and around landing zones.NASA/Genaro Vavuris This technology will be important for future air taxi flights, especially those occurring in cities by tracking aircraft moving through traffic corridors and around landing zones. Distributed sensing has the potential to enhance collision avoidance systems, air traffic management, ground-based landing sensors, and more.
“Our early work on a distributed network of sensors, and through this study, gives us the opportunity to test new technologies that can someday assist in airspace monitoring and collision avoidance above cities,” said George Gorospe, lead for this effort from NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley.
Using this data from an experimental air taxi aircraft, NASA will further develop the technology needed to help create safer air taxi flights in high-traffic areas. Both of these efforts will benefit the companies working to bring air taxis and drones safely into the airspace.
The work is led by NASA’s Transformational Tools and Technologies and Convergent Aeronautics Solutions projects under the Transformative Aeronautics Concepts program in support of NASA’s Advanced Air Mobility mission. NASA’s Advanced Air Mobility mission seeks to deliver data to guide the industry’s development of electric air taxis and drones.
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Last Updated Apr 17, 2025 EditorDede DiniusContactTeresa Whitingteresa.whiting@nasa.govLocationArmstrong Flight Research Center Related Terms
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By NASA
Scientists have hypothesized since the 1960s that the Sun is a source of ingredients that form water on the Moon. When a stream of charged particles known as the solar wind smashes into the lunar surface, the idea goes, it triggers a chemical reaction that could make water molecules.
Now, in the most realistic lab simulation of this process yet, NASA-led researchers have confirmed this prediction.
The finding, researchers wrote in a March 17 paper in JGR Planets, has implications for NASA’s Artemis astronaut operations at the Moon’s South Pole. A critical resource for exploration, much of the water on the Moon is thought to be frozen in permanently shadowed regions at the poles.
“The exciting thing here is that with only lunar soil and a basic ingredient from the Sun, which is always spitting out hydrogen, there’s a possibility of creating water,” Li Hsia Yeo, a research scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “That’s incredible to think about,” said Yeo, who led the study.
Solar wind flows constantly from the Sun. It’s made largely of protons, which are nuclei of hydrogen atoms that have lost their electrons. Traveling at more than one million miles per hour, the solar wind bathes the entire solar system. We see evidence of it on Earth when it lights up our sky in auroral light shows.
Computer-processed data of the solar wind from NASA’s STEREO spacecraft. Download here: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/20278/ NASA/SwRI/Craig DeForest Most of the solar particles don’t reach the surface of Earth because our planet has a magnetic shield and an atmosphere to deflect them. But the Moon has no such protection. As computer models and lab experiments have shown, when protons smash into the Moon’s surface, which is made of a dusty and rocky material called regolith, they collide with electrons and recombine to form hydrogen atoms.
Then, the hydrogen atoms can migrate through the lunar surface and bond with the abundant oxygen atoms already present in minerals like silica to form hydroxyl (OH) molecules, a component of water, and water (H2O) molecules themselves.
Scientists have found evidence of both hydroxyl and water molecules in the Moon’s upper surface, just a few millimeters deep. These molecules leave behind a kind of chemical fingerprint — a noticeable dip in a wavy line on a graph that shows how light interacts with the regolith. With the current tools available, though, it is difficult to tell the difference between hydroxyl and water, so scientists use the term “water” to refer to either one or a mix of both molecules.
Many researchers think the solar wind is the main reason the molecules are there, though other sources like micrometeorite impacts could also help by creating heat and triggering chemical reactions.
In 2016, scientists discovered that water is released from the Moon during meteor showers. When a speck of comet debris strikes the moon, it vaporizes on impact, creating a shock wave in the lunar soil. With a sufficiently large impactor, this shock wave can breach the soil’s dry upper layer and release water molecules from a hydrated layer below. NASA’s LADEE spacecraft detected these water molecules as they entered the tenuous lunar atmosphere. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab Spacecraft measurements had already hinted that the solar wind is the primary driver of water, or its components, at the lunar surface. One key clue, confirmed by Yeo’s team’s experiment: the Moon’s water-related spectral signal changes over the course of the day.
In some regions, it’s stronger in the cooler morning and fades as the surface heats up, likely because water and hydrogen molecules move around or escape to space. As the surface cools again at night, the signal peaks again. This daily cycle points to an active source — most likely the solar wind—replenishing tiny amounts of water on the Moon each day.
To test whether this is true, Yeo and her colleague, Jason McLain, a research scientist at NASA Goddard, built a custom apparatus to examine Apollo lunar samples. In a first, the apparatus held all experiment components inside: a solar particle beam device, an airless chamber that simulated the Moon’s environment, and a molecule detector. Their invention allowed the researchers to avoid ever taking the sample out of the chamber — as other experiments did — and exposing it to contamination from the water in the air.
“It took a long time and many iterations to design the apparatus components and get them all to fit inside,” said McLain, “but it was worth it, because once we eliminated all possible sources of contamination, we learned that this decades-old idea about the solar wind turns out to be true.”
Using dust from two different samples picked up on the Moon by NASA’s Apollo 17 astronauts in 1972, Yeo and her colleagues first baked the samples to remove any possible water they could have picked up between air-tight storage in NASA’s space-sample curation facility at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston and Goddard’s lab. Then, they used a tiny particle accelerator to bombard the dust with mock solar wind for several days — the equivalent of 80,000 years on the Moon, based on the high dose of the particles used.
They used a detector called a spectrometer to measure how much light the dust molecules reflected, which showed how the samples’ chemical makeup changed over time.
In the end, the team saw a drop in the light signal that bounced to their detector precisely at the point in the infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum — near 3 microns — where water typically absorbs energy, leaving a telltale signature.
While they can’t conclusively say if their experiment made water molecules, the researchers reported in their study that the shape and width of the dip in the wavy line on their graph suggests that both hydroxyl and water were produced in the lunar samples.
By Lonnie Shekhtman
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
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By NASA
NASA The instrument enclosure of NASA’s Near-Earth Object Surveyor is prepared for critical environmental tests inside the historic Chamber A at the Space Environment Simulation Laboratory at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston in December 2024. Wrapped in silver thermal blanketing, the 12-foot-long (3.7-meter-long) angular structure was subjected to the frigid, airless conditions that the spacecraft will experience when in deep space. The cavernous thermal-vacuum test facility is famous for testing the Apollo spacecraft that traveled to the Moon in the 1960s and ’70s.
The instrument enclosure is designed to protect the spacecraft’s infrared telescope while also removing heat from it during operations. After environmental testing was completed, the enclosure returned to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California for further work, after which it will ship to the Space Dynamics Laboratory (SDL) in Logan, Utah, and be joined to the telescope. Both the instrument enclosure and telescope were assembled at JPL.
As NASA’s first space-based detection mission specifically designed for planetary defense, NEO Surveyor will seek out, measure, and characterize the hardest-to-find asteroids and comets that might pose a hazard to Earth. While many near-Earth objects don’t reflect much visible light, they glow brightly in infrared light due to heating by the Sun. The spacecraft’s telescope, which has an aperture of nearly 20 inches (50 centimeters), features detectors sensitive to two infrared wavelengths in which near-Earth objects re-radiate solar heat.
More information about NEO Surveyor is available at: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/neo-surveyor/
Image credit: NASA
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