@nasagoddard

Once you’ve mapped Mars with a laser, what’s next? The Goddard lidar team turned their skills to Mercury, the Moon, and our home planet. With laser altimetry, we could measure Earth’s changing ice in a whole new dimension. Catch the full series at the link in our bio! Video Description: 00:00 Old footage showing an approach of Mercury then a view of the surface of Mercury. Yellow text on screen reads “Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab asked Goddard to design a lidar for the MESSENGER mission, the Mercury Laser Altimeter (MLA).” 00:08 David E. Smith on a video call with a graphic reading “David E. Smith, MLA Principal Investigator” 00:12 Animations of MESSENGER spacecraft passing by the camera over Mercury 00:17 John Cavanaugh in a studio interview with a graphic reading “John Cavanaugh, Instrument Systems Engineer” 00:21 Animation of MESSENGER spacecraft headed away from camera around Mercury as the Sun faces camera 00:24 Xiaoli Sun on a video call with graphic reading “Xiaoli Sun, Lidar Instrument Scientist” 00:26 Animation of MESSENGER spacecraft passing by closely to camera, the bright white center of the spacecraft glowing from the sunlight 00:30 Jan McGarry on a video call with a graphic reading “Jan McGarry, MLA Algorithm Engineer” 00:33 Animation of MESSENGER spacecraft gliding away from camera with Mercury visible underneath 00:42 Fullscreen graphic of an outline of the MLA instrument with the dimensions 7.4 kg, 25 cm wide and 28 cm tall over a blue grid background. The camera pulls out to put MLA next to the larger MOLA instrument, which has the dimensions 26 kg, 70 cm wide and 70 cm tall 00:50 David E. Smith on a video call 00:56 Photograph of the inside of the MLA instrument with very thin wires and small circuitry and a label showing the length being 12 cm. This photo is over a blue-green background with images of Mercury faintly visible 01:01 David E. Smith on a video call 01:08 Fullscreen graphic of series title, reading “Leaders in Lidar” in yellow blocky glowing font. The background is a blue grid with multicolored laser beams flying toward the camera and various images of people and instruments swirling around the edges. #NASA #Space #Laser

February 07, 2023