ANAtOLIA : a new mobile site-testing station for astronomy and optical communications

Aziz Ziad (1) , Christophe Giordano (1) , Alessandro Aresta (2) , Eric Aristidi (1) , Christophe Bailet (1) , Filippo Berto (3) , Chiara Bertolin (3) , Marcel Carbillet (1) , Stefano Cavazzani (3) , Damien Ceus (4) , Thibaud Charbonnel (1) , Julien Delanoë (5) , Jacques Descloitres (6) , Yan Fantéï-Caujolle (1) , Adrien Gillioën (1) , Yenny Gonzalez-Ramos (7) , Abdanour Irbah (8) , Estelle Jacqmart (1) , Arnaud Le Kernec (9) , Olivier Liandrat (4) , Sylvain Poulenard (2) , Jérôme Riedi (6) , Nicolas Schmutz (4) , Stephane Victori (7)

1 OCA - Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur
2 Airbus Defence and Space [Les Mureaux]
3 NTNU University Museum [Trondheim]
4 ReuniWatt
5 SPACE - LATMOS
6 ICARE - Institut de Combustion, Aérothermique, Réactivité et Environnement
7 Société Cimel Electronique
8 LATMOS - Laboratoire Atmosphères, Milieux, Observations Spatiales
9 TAS - Thales Alenia Space [Toulouse]

ANAtOLIA (Atmospheric moNitoring to Assess the availability of Optical LInks through the Atmosphere) is a project funded by the European Space Agency and aims to ground-sites selection and assess their availabilities for optical links through the atmosphere. In addition to cloud cover, space-to-ground optical communications are limited by aerosols and atmospheric turbulence. Therefore, we are developing in the framework of the ANAtOLIA project, an innovative and efficiency instrumentation and studies to specify, accurately measure, analyze, characterize, and ultimately predict critical atmospheric parameters for the purposes of the selection of the OGS (Optical Ground Station) sites and the evaluation of their availability. The main mission objectives of ANAtOLIA are to design, manufacture, procure and assembly a self-standing and autonomous ground support equipment, comprising cloud, aerosol and turbulence monitoring to deliver precise measurements of the atmosphere transmission. Secondary study goals are to install and commission of these atmosphere monitors at selected ground locations in ESA member states or in their vicinity and to record continuously local cloud, aerosol information and atmospheric turbulence conditions for 24 months. The last objective is to correlate these local ground measurements with data available from other sources of atmospheric conditions. The main goal of these correlations is to improve knowledge of the optical link availability for selected OGS locations and to carry out a long-term validation of the optical link availability prediction methods. This compact 24h mobile station consists of the Generalized Monitor of Turbulence (GMT), Reuniwatt Sky Insight camera and Cimel CE318-T.

Domaines: Instrumentation et méthodes pour l'astrophysique [astro-ph.IM]

Aziz Ziad, Christophe Giordano, Alessandro Aresta, Eric Aristidi, Christophe Bailet, et al.. ANAtOLIA : a new mobile site-testing station for astronomy and optical communications. Adaptive Optics Systems VIII. Proceedings SPIE Vol 12185, Jul 2022, Montréal, Canada. ⟨10.1117/12.2629825⟩. ⟨insu-03768279⟩