The islands of Aeolia, the home of Aeolus, keeper of the winds in Greek mythology, were a fitting location to explore the legacy of the European Space Agency’s trailblazing wind satellite, and the future of spaceborne Doppler wind lidars.
Aeolus was a remarkable achievement. Its ALADIN instrument used innovative laser technology and the Doppler effect to measure vertical profiles of Earth’s winds on a global scale for the very first time from space.
At the Aeolus science conference in Lipari, April 2026, we discovered the history of this pioneering feat – and how the hard work developing Aeolus has helped the development of current instruments such as EarthCARE’s atmospheric lidar (ATLID) and paved the way for the future operational EPS Aeolus/Aeolus-2 mission – a joint endeavour between ESA and EUMETSAT.