ESA’s Martin Kaspers joins us at Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, where Aeolus is being readied for liftoff on 21 August 2018. Martin discusses some of the challenges they have encountered developing this state-of-the-art satellite mission. Aeolus uses powerful laser technology that probes the lowermost 30 km of our atmosphere to yield vertical profiles of the wind and information on aerosols and clouds – a completely new approach to measuring the wind from space.