HALO Large Wing Pods (HLWPs)

• Subject Area: Atmospheric Science
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 531847078

The High Altitude and Long Range Research Aircraft (HALO) serves as a major large-scale research infrastructure to answer important scientific questions of Earth System Research. This outstanding research aircraft carries elaborate and highly specialized in-situ and remote sensing instrumentation. As a flying high-tech laboratory, HALO performs airborne observations of atmospheric and surface-related processes in multi-partner campaigns around the globe. It is characterized by exceptional flight capabilities (maximum range: 8000 km, instrumental payload: up to 3 t, ceiling: 15 km), which enable to tackle outstanding research topics in Earth System Research. After numerous successful campaigns, HALO has evolved into an internationally highly visible, airborne platform, performing cutting-edge atmospheric and geophysical research. To make the most efficient use of the outstanding performance characteristics of HALO, it is of utmost importance to continuously optimize the existing instrumentation, and constantly implement new and innovative devices to the aircraft scientific equipment. The success of the HALO missions completed so far has convincingly proven that the HALO community has effectively realized this requirement in the past. DFG has launched the Major Instrumentation Initiative for HALO (MII-HALO) to enable novel research ideas in future missions, as they often require fundamentally new instrumentation for HALO, which is always very costly. In particular, university institutes mostly cannot afford to purchase and certify additional instruments for HALO. In this framework, we propose to further develop the hardware and obtain flight certification for the two available HALO Large Wing Pods (HLWPs), such that they can be operated under the wings of HALO, one for each wing. With a length of 4 m, a diameter of 0.5 m, and a possible scientific payload of about 200 kg, the two HLWPs can carry comparably large and heavy instruments. The original HLWPs hardware has been manufactured in the commissioning phase of HALO. The certification had to be postponed due to shortages in the financial budget and personnel capacities. The certification of the HLWPs is a complex task and requires further ground tests and an extensive flight test program. This will allow the HLWPs to fulfill all foreseeable specific instrument requirements. Besides obtaining airworthiness, it is proposed that the existing HLWPs will be modified to be able to accommodate novel measurement setups that will be implemented on HALO within the current MII-HALO. Both, in-situ as well as remote sensing instruments can be housed in the HLWPs and, thus, the HALO scientific user community will benefit considerably from this hardware development. New instruments likely to be proposed within this MII-HALO, but also improved setups of existing instruments and new instrument ideas from groups not eligible to apply for funding within the MII-HALO, rely on the availability of the HLWPs.

• DFG Programme: Major Instrumentation Initiatives
• Applicant Institution: Universität Leipzig
• Leader: Professor Dr. Manfred Wendisch