Methane lidar is needed by the Science Mission Directorate (SMD) to support earth based global change research and exploration science mission to identify the planetary sources of sinks of methane, a key green house gas. NASA mission use includes: Updating existing NASA DC8 lidar, technology support development of a Global Hawk, high altitude UAV, methane lidar as part of an Earth Venture Suborbital mission; A successful phase 2 can support a satellite based global methane measurement that can identify more localized methane sources/sinks and can operate in day and nighttime conditions which provides additional data when combined with passive optical systems. Fibertek's core business is aerospace lidar and laser technology in support of commercial , aerospace and government customers. The core Er:YAG technology developed as part of this SBIR can be utilized for NASA markets in support of global change research, gas exploration market to identify methane and hence sources of natural gas and oil, pipeline leak identification. The Er:YAG core eye safe technology also enables advanced performance aerospace needs in : Laser rangefinding, target designators, 3D flash and scanning imaging lidars and coherent imaging systems.
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