Teledyne e2v Space Imaging , part of Teledyne Technologies, designed and built sensors for Aeolus, the first European Space Agency (ESA) satellite mission to acquire profiles of Earth’s wind on a global scale.
Aeolus is the fifth satellite in ESA’s Living Planet Program and has become one of the highest, impact-per-observation instruments in existence. The sensor is capable of observing Earth’s surface weather systems and into the stratosphere, 30 km. high. This has helped to predict how that environment will behave in the future.
Since 2018, the data from the Aeolus satellite observations have been used to improve weather forecasts and climate models. They have also been used for tracking Saharan dust storms and enabling better understanding of plumes from volcanoes. The Aeolus mission has paved the way for future operational meteorological satellites dedicated to study Earth’s wind profiles.
The Teledyne team manufactured a bespoke sensor for Aeolus with a novel design specifically for this application. The sensor collects many signals from different altitudes, enabling Aeolus to measure wind speed at different heights throughout the atmosphere.
This month, ESA is setting a precedent with the assisted decommissioning of the now retired Aeolus wind tracking satellite. This will demonstrate to the growing commercial space industry that it is possible to responsibly end space missions and reduce the amount of space debris objects on-orbit.
The Teledyne e2v Space Imaging team continue to specialize in bespoke detectors to meet the ever-increasing number of Earth Observation missions.
“The Teledyne Space Imaging team have enjoyed being part of this successful demonstrator mission which has far exceeded expectations. We look forward to building a detector with improved performance for the Aeolus-2 follow-up mission. We are proud to have assisted most of the world’s weather forecasting agencies in improved accuracy of long-range forecasts.” — Paul Jerram, Chief Engineer, Teledyne e2v Aeolus team