Vegetation
Canopy Lidar (VCL)
-Key Facts-
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Principal goal is the characterization
of the three dimensional structure of the Earth, in particular: canopy
vertical and horizontal structure and land surface topography.
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Primary science objectives are:
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landcover characterization for terrestrial
ecosystem modeling
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monitoring and prediction
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landcover characterization for climate
modeling and prediction
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production of a global reference data
set of topographic spot heights and transects
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VCL will provide unique data sets for understanding important
environmental issues including climatic change and variability, biotic erosion and sustainable landuse, and will
dramtically improve our estimation of global biomass and carbon stocks, fractional forest cover, forest extent
and condition, and provide canopy data critical for biodiversity studies, as well as for natural hazard and
climate studies
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Utilizes 3 diode-pumped, Q-switched Nd:YAG
lasers, generating 15 mJ, 10 ns-wide Gaussian shaped pulses at a wavelength of 1064
nm. The lasers operate at frequencies of 10 Hz (over oceans) and 242 Hz (over
land).
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Lasers are in a circular configuration
which from a 400 km-high orbit will span an 8 km-wide area.
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Laser footprints are 25 m wide. They are near contiguous in the along
track direction, and spaced 2 km apart across track
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Receiver telescope is 0.9 m in diameter
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Orbit (elliptical) altitude is 400 km,
and at 67 degree inclination
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Global Positioning System (GPS) and Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR) techniques provide
the spacecraft orbit to 15 cm (1 sigma) accuracy
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On board star camera and fiber optic
gyroscope provide spacecraft orientation and laser direction to 6 arcsec (1 sigma)
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VCL will be launched in mid-2000 onboard an Athena launch vehicle
