A team of researchers from the Xi'an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics (XIOPM) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences developed a Doppler heterodyne Wind Imager (DWI), which is China's first vector wind field detection payload for the middle and upper atmosphere. The DWI has already launched with the "Tianlu-1" satellite and acquired first in-orbit interferograms.
As an important parameter for characterizing the dynamic parameters of the middle and upper atmosphere, the atmospheric wind field directly affects the transportation of atmospheric matter and energy, along with the structural evolution. In application practice, the near-space atmospheric wind field significantly affects spacecraft launch and return, the design and application of hypersonic vehicles, as well as the operational support for radio communication and satellite navigation. In terms of scientific research, wind field data in the region are of great help in understanding major scientific issues such as weather and climate change, energy balance in the Sun-Earth system, which are of great interest in current geoscientific research.
At 12:07 on January 17, 2025, the remote sensing satellite "Tianlu-1" was successfully launched and entered the scheduled orbit. DWI developed by XIOPM is one of the three payloads carried by "Tianlu-1", which is China's first vector wind field detection payload for the middle and upper atmosphere, is also the first Doppler asymmetric spatial heterodyne interferometric system of the dual-field-of-view coupled interferometer in the world.
DWI detects the atmospheric oxygen atom airglow spectral line (557.7nm green line) by means of the limb viewing mode, which can obtain continuous profile information of the atmospheric horizontal wind field within the altitude range of 80-150 km. The payload system adopts an innovative three-time imaging scheme, which effectively reduces the volume and weight of the payload and achieves the function of simultaneous calibration of divided fields of view, improving the accuracy of wind field detection.
Recently, the DWI load has carried out in-orbit testing and observation experiment missions. The first batch of acquired interferogram data includes Level 0 (L0) raw interferogram data and Level 1 (L1) preprocessed interferogram data. Indicators such as the signal-to-noise ratio, modulation degree, and residual distortion are all in line with expectations. These data verifies the stability and reliability of the DWI payload during its in-orbit operation.
The successful in-orbit application of the DWI payload will provide basic data for research in fields such as the dynamics of the middle and upper atmosphere, thermosphere-ionosphere coupling, and atmospheric numerical simulation. It will also offer data support for the space environment assurance in areas including the design and operation of near-space vehicles, space radio communication and navigation, as well as the launch and return of spacecraft.
Fig1. DWI body part. (Image by XIOPM)
Fig2. DWI in-orbit interferograms with dual-field-of-view coupling and simultaneous calibration. (Image by XIOPM)
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