News & Events

02 juillet 2020

LEMON General Assembly

The LEMON project is dedicated to developing a new versatile Differential Absorption Lidar (DIAL) sensor concept for greenhouse gases and water vapour measurements from space. Although during the COVID-19 crisis most of partners’ facilities were closed and the access to their laboratories limited, the LEMON team continued part of the work remotely.

The LEMON General Assembly meeting, which took place in June 2020 (month 18 of the project), was the opportunity to have a global overview of the project advancement.
The system and sub-system specifications have been delivered and the critical design review has been performed. The project focuses now on the manufacturing phase, which has been delayed due to the partners’ facilities lock-down.
Regarding the validation of the LEMON instrument, data from other projects and campaigns have been collected and analysed, in order to anticipate both the ground-based and the airborne demonstration steps.
At last, the task for space qualification has also progressed with the delivery of the protocol for NLC radiation testing.
The General Assembly meeting was a great opportunity for all project partners to present the latest project advancements to external experts from Météo France and from the Molecular and Atmospheric Spectrometry Group of the University of Reims. This meeting was also the occasion to discuss the European Commission’s recommendations from the previous review meeting, to evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the project planning and to define the next steps forward.

In conclusion, despite a minor delay, the LEMON project is showing good progress and all its partners will continue their joint effort to achieve the project objectives.