WP1 Management (ONERA):
Coordinate, monitor and implement the necessary measures for the achievement of LEMON objectives on time, within the allocated budget and according to high quality standards. Different actions were implemented to ensure the smooth running of the project: internal project monitoring and control, risk management, meetings organised, contractual and change management, financial management, quality and administrative management, data management, reporting, deliverables, etc.
WP2 Requirements and Instrument Design (ONERA):
Instrument and sub-system specifications were defined. Work on the instrument and its sub-systems design was pursued.
WP3 Manufacturing (Fraunhofer ILT):
Manufacturing of several DIAL subsystems set-up was achieved, e.g. the pump laser, OPOs, receiver telescope and frequency reference; special care was taken for the interfaces; tests were performed on these sub-systems.
WP4 Instrument ground validation and airborne demonstration (CNRS):
A first campaign was organized at the beginning of the project with in situ-sensors to get variability of HDO/H2O variations and to better assess the DIAL measurement needs.
Specific calibration protocols and procedures for measuring water isotopes during aircraft campaigns were defined. First proof-of-concept of HDO/H2O DIAL probing was achieved.
Preparation of the airborne certification, integration of the LEMON DIAL instrument and reference CRDS instrument in the Safire ATR42 aircraft, and their tests were conducted. First airborne tests for the DIAL and science measurements flights using the in situ sensors took place.
WP5 Components space qualification and sub-systems TRL improvement (SPACETECH):
Several technical concepts were addressed here:
• A space compatible wide range wavemeter design was developed, assembled and tested. Radiation testing of critical optical components was conducted.
• Preliminary vibration tests on some sub-units were performed and analysed.
• First investigation at low TRL of new parametric schemes were tested.
WP6 Communication, Dissemination, Exploitation (L-UP):
A tailored communication and dissemination plan was defined, project graphic identity created, communication set produced, project public website released online and regularly updated with news, LEMON LinkedIn page created and managed, 6 project public newsletters released. Monitored and reported all dissemination activities (presentations at conferences/other events, scientific papers and dataset publications). Cross-fertilised results in several fields, such as space, optics and photonics. LEMON Final Public Workshop organised. Submitted LEMON future space integration roadmap and the LEMON Exploitation plan.
Overview of the results and their exploitation and dissemination:
The main key exploitable results obtained are:
• For future future ground or airborne science campaigns and calibration/validation of space missions:
o A DIAL Instrument with the capability to address several species.
o Calibrations processes for in-situ and airborne commercial CRDS H2O/HDO sensors.
• For future spaceborne DIAL instruments:
o Technical improvements in terms of emitter based on parametric sources, especially benefitting from the periodically poled nonlinear materials advantages.
o An innovative emitter and frequency reference solutions were tested at various TRL levels.
Results were disseminated by all partners via presentations at 40 conferences and other events, including the Final Project Public Workshop; 10 peer-reviewed papers and 1 dataset were published in Open Access; 1 article was published in a technical magazine. Particular effort was done to cross-fertilise LEMON results towards the optics and photonics communities. LEMON future space integration roadmap, presenting the KER which could be used for future spaceborne differential absorption Lidar applications, was published on the LEMON website and LinkedIn as a poster.
