LITE-the first spaceborne lidar

The first lidar in Earth orbit was recently flown aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery, September 9-20, 1994. The lidar In-space Technology Experiment (LITE) collected 45 hours of 3-wavelength atmospheric backscatter profiles during the 10-day mission. A wide variety of lidar measurements were made, including those of multi-level clouds, tropospheric and stratospheric aerosols, PBL heights, desert aerosols aloft, smoke from biomass burning, and pollution outflows from continents. This paper describes the LITE instrument and its capabilities, the worldwide correlative measurements program, and initial results.<>