LITE ... a view from space

LITE is a three-wavelength backscatter lidar developed by NASA Langley Research Center to fly on the Space Shuttle.

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LITE flew on Discovery in September 1994 as part of the STS-64 mission.

... the goals of the mission

• validate key lidar technologies for spaceborne applications
• explore the applications of space lidar
• gain operational experience to benefit the development of future systems on free-flying satellite platforms.

... the final results

These data provide the FIRST highly detailed global view of the vertical structure of cloud and aerosol from the Earth's surface through the middle stratosphere.

LITE provided views of multilayer cloud structures.

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LITE provided sensitive observations of the distribution of desert dust, smoke, and other aerosols.

LITE provided the first global observations of planetary boundary layer height.

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Topics may be selected from the LITE Home Page Directory displayed on the upper left side of each page or from the table below.

Select LITE Topics From Here
Mission Overview	Provides an overview of the LITE mission.
Data User's Guide	Describes how to use the LITE data.
Data FAQ's	Frequently Asked Questions about LITE data.
Science Steering Group	Read about the members of the LITE Science Steering Group and link to their special topics websites.
Instrument	Read about the LITE instrument.
Publications	Lists publications about the LITE mission and results of analysis.
Images	View data images from all three lidar wavelengths.
Photographs	View photographs from the LITE camera.
Photographs and Images	View LITE lidar images with the corresponding photographs from the LITE camera.
Data Gallery	Investigate tutorials describing selected observations of LITE.
Meta Database	Access LITE Meta Database - Concise descriptions of LITE level 0 data at 10 second intervals.
Instrument Status Data Block (ISDB) Dataset	Access LITE ISDB data.

	NASA Home Page		Langley Research Center Home Page		Lidar Researchers Directory