VCL

Jump to: Mission Objectives, Mission Instrumentation, Mission Parameters, Additional Information

Note: The VCL mission experienced implementation difficulties such that it was necessary for NASA to postpone indefinitely further phases of project execution. The information included on these ILRS pages reflect the request from the mission when NASA planned to develop the program.

Mission Photos:

Courtesy of NASA

Mission Objectives:

The Vegetation Canopy Lidar (VCL) mission seeks to provide the first global inventory of the vertical structure of forests across earth using a multibeam laser ranging device. VCL will enable direct measurement of tree heights, forest canopy structure, and derived parameters such as global biomass with at least ten times better accuracy than existing assessments.

VCL and the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) were the initial two primary NASA Earth System Science Pathfinder (ESSP) Missions, selected for implementation in March 1997 through competitive selection. The ESSP program is a new element of NASA's Office of Mission to Planet Earth (MTPE), a long-term, coordinated research enterprise designed to study the Earth as a global environmental system.

Mission Instrumentation:

VCL has the following instrumentation onboard:

1. Lasers (3 - 5 Nd:YAG diode-pumped pulsed lasers)
2. Telescope
3. Si avalanche photodiodes
4. Waveform digitizer
5. Retroreflector array
   

Mission Parameters:

Additional Information:

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Author: Mark Torrence
Maintained by: Carey Noll