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CASALS lidar: NASA instrument maps Earth in continuous 3D swaths instead of thin lines

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NASA’s CASALS lidar instrument can map Earth’s forests and terrain as continuous 3D swaths rather than the narrow lines measured by today’s space lasers, NASA said on 21 October 2026. Researchers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center built it to fill the large gaps that current instruments leave unmeasured.

CASALS lidar: A 3D point cloud of a swamp area mapped by the airborne CASALS prototype, coloured by height
A 3D point cloud of a swamp area mapped by the airborne CASALS prototype, coloured by height Photo: NASA (public domain).

How the CASALS lidar steers light with wavelength

CASALS, the Concurrent Artificially-intelligent Spectrometry Lidar System, blends machine learning with a compact lidar, NASA said. Instead of moving a laser with heavy, failure-prone motorised mirrors, it uses a fast-pulsing, tunable seed laser centred at 1040 nanometres that cycles through 256 wavelengths. Each pulse passes through a transmission grating, and because light bends at slightly different angles depending on wavelength, each one lands at a different spot across the flight path. Removing moving parts cuts size, weight and power, which makes it more reliable in space, said principal investigator John Yorks. The grating is an optical part with a microscopic pattern of ridges. Current space lidars leave gaps between their tracks that include millions of acres scientists never directly measure, NASA said.

Key Facts

  • Developer: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
  • Laser: 1040 nm, cycling through 256 wavelengths
  • Detector efficiency: 80%
  • Resolution from ~5 km altitude: 22 cm
  • Next flight: ASCENT campaign, summer 2027

80% detector efficiency and 22-cm detail

Its detector works at 80% quantum efficiency, meaning it wastes almost none of the returning light and can pick up weaker signals from dark surfaces or dense vegetation, NASA said. In November 2024, an airborne prototype flew on NASA’s B200 King Air aircraft and produced science-quality data on its first campaign. Flying at about 5 km, CASALS can tell apart individual tree branches and subtle changes in ground height thanks to its 22-cm horizontal resolution. “This worked really well from the first time we flew it,” Yorks said. “We’re able to see really fine details of vegetation structure and changes in the topography of the surface,” Yorks said, crediting engineers Guang Yang and Jeffrey Chen. That makes it suitable for dense forests.

Next steps toward a space version of 3D mapping

The team plans to fly CASALS in the Airborne Surface, Cryosphere, Ecosystem, and Nearshore Topography (ASCENT) campaign in summer 2027, NASA said. Before building a space-ready prototype, engineers are widening the swath and adding onboard data processing. If it works, CASALS could become the first spaceborne lidar to map forests and terrain as continuous three-dimensional swaths. The work is supported by NASA’s Earth Science Technology Office, with partners including the University of California, Santa Barbara and Virginia Tech. Yorks said the team is being funded to optimise performance and to mature the airborne technology for a future spaceborne version. Funding has come from NASA’s Decadal Survey Incubation and Instrument Incubation programmes.

Why It Matters: Full 3D maps of forests and terrain from orbit would give scientists a far more complete picture of forests and terrain than the separate lines measured by today's space lasers, NASA said.

Also on TrendDesh: NASA GRACE map shows groundwater in northern India falling faster than earlier estimates · Bieszczady National Park turns red and gold in NASA Landsat 9 image of Poland's autumn forests

Source: NASA Science, 21 Oct 2026 · NASA Earth Science Technology Office · NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

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