Honeywell Atmospheric Winds Campaign for Space (HAWCS): Updates and Initial Results from Deployments of Ground and Airborne LiDAR Systems

In late 2024 and early 2025, Honeywell is executing a field campaign to compare Honeywell’s HALAS technologies, airborne and ground-based, to legacy sensors (i.e., radiosondes). This campaign is focusing measurements with one ground-based HALAS system and one airborne HALAS system in a region of southern California where the Honeywell team and collaborators will launch additional radiosondes to obtain a more complete dataset for intercomparisons. NOAA aims to use the results from these ground and airborne demonstrations of HALAS technology along with the radiosonde data and numerical weather modeling to evaluate the feasibility, fidelity, and added value of a potential space-based HALAS system for Earth observations. Honeywell is also preparing a report on the conceptual design and modeled performance of a space-based HALAS variant to aid in NOAA’s evaluation. This presentation reviews campaign set-up and progress, highlighting recent measurements from the two HALAS systems actively deployed for HAWCS. Initial findings from comparisons with radiosondes will be presented as well as the plan for the remaining period of the campaign and program.