DAWN YELLOW

DAWN started out GRIP with two kinds of problems. One kind, such as poor laser operation and receiver electronics saturating, prevented the recording of good wind data. The other kind of problem, such as the real-time displays, noise whitening not implemented, and incomplete velocity calculation algorithm, prevented us from viewing wind profiles or giving them to others, but did not prevent the recording of good wind data for later processing.

We have fixed the receiver saturation. We have made gains in the laser thermal problem. The total time of good laser operation is increasing with each fix. The insulation we installed in the cargo level has not been tested with a flight yet, but we believe it will further increase the laser operation time. We are working on yet another fix of adding a heater and fan in the optics can without deintegration.

Our real-time displays have now been improved to give us a better readout of  lidar health. The final velocity algorithm is still not done. But if we fly now, we are recording good wind data for later processing.