| Popis: |
The Airborne Laser Concepts Testbed is located on White Sands Missile Range, NM and is used to explore and develop new methods for tracking, pointing, and compensation of laser beams. All of these efforts require a knowledge of the optical turbulence along the propagation path. The site utilizes a 52.6 km propagation path over a desert basin between two mountain peaks (North Oscuro Peak (NOP) and Salinas Peak). Characterization of the optical turbulence at ABL ACT is challenging due to the long path length int he atmospheric boundary layer and the complex terrain of the site. A suite of instrumentation is being used to approach the problem; a sodar, fine wire probes, a pupil plane imager, a differential image motion monitor, and a scintillometer. In addition, a weather station senses ambient temperature, humidity, pressure, wind speed and direction, and solar radiation-received both horizontally and parallel to the mountain west-facing slope at NOP. |
