The European Space Agency’s Aeolus wind sensing satellite has made the long journey to the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou and has been loaded into its launch vehicle.  It is scheduled to be launched on 21st August.

Aeolus is designed to observe global wind profiles on a daily basis and in real-time.  

Built by Airbus, Aelous will be equipped with a LIDAR instrument named Aladin.  Aladin will use the Doppler effect to measure the wind speed at different altitudes.  This data will give reliable wind-profile data to meteorologists in order to improve the accuracy of weather forecasts as well as to aid climatologists to improve their knowledge of Earth’s atmosphere.

Orbiting the Earth 15 times a day, Aeolus will deliver data captured within two hours of the oldest measurement in each orbit and is expected to remain in service for approximately three years.