ESA Authorizes Airbus to Build Aeolus-2, Successor to Pioneering Space Wind Mission
Featured image: Artist’s concept of the Aeolus-2 satellite in orbit; credit: ESA/Airbus
The European Space Agency has signed a formal contract with Airbus Defence and Space UK to proceed with the development of Aeolus-2, the operational successor to the groundbreaking Aeolus wind mission that demonstrated the first space-based measurements of global wind profiles. The contract, valued at approximately 70 million euros for the Phase B2 design and build stage, was signed June 29 at ESA’s UK headquarters at Harwell.
Aeolus-2 transitions the Doppler wind lidar technology from a research demonstration into a permanent operational weather service, jointly managed by ESA and EUMETSAT. The original Aeolus satellite, launched in 2018 and deorbited in 2023, improved numerical weather prediction forecast accuracy by 4 percent and reduced the mean error between predictions and observations by more than 4 percent, particularly benefiting tropical and polar upper-atmosphere forecasting.
The new mission consists of two satellites launched sequentially, each with a design life of 5.5 to 7 years, providing more than a decade of continuous wind profile measurements. Each satellite will carry an upgraded Doppler wind lidar instrument with two lasers, each twice as powerful as Aeolus’ single laser, drawing on design heritage from both Aeolus and the ESA-JAXA EarthCARE cloud and aerosol mission. An additional detector will also measure atmospheric aerosols.
Operating from a sun-synchronous orbit at roughly 400 to 450 kilometers altitude, Aeolus-2 will fire ultraviolet laser pulses toward Earth and measure the Doppler shift of backscattered light from air molecules, aerosols, and cloud particles to calculate wind speed and direction from the ground up to 30 or 40 kilometers altitude. Each satellite will generate approximately 100 wind profiles per hour with a data latency of under 120 minutes.
The World Meteorological Organization has repeatedly identified direct global wind profiles as the highest-priority atmospheric variable not adequately measured by current or planned observing systems. Before Aeolus, most wind data came from radiosondes concentrated over Northern Hemisphere land masses, with oceans, the tropics, and the Southern Hemisphere relying on indirect inferences from satellite radiances and cloud motion vectors. Aeolus-2 will fill that gap permanently.
The first satellite is scheduled for launch around 2034. The program falls under the EUMETSAT Polar System framework and was approved at the 2022 ESA Ministerial Council. Airbus Defence and Space UK, which also built the original Aeolus spacecraft at its Stevenage facility, will serve as prime contractor.
Source: 1ban.news – Space Desk