Montana State University researchers receive $750,000 laser grant from NASA

July 1, 2008--Montana State University (MSU; Bozeman, MT) researchers received a three-year, $750,000 grant from the National Aeronautics and Space Admimistration (NASA; Washington, DC) to fund their work on using lasers to study earth's atmosphere and climate. The grant comes from the space agency's Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research; MSU is one of only a dozen universities around the country to receive one of the grants.

Electrical engineers Kevin Repasky, Joseph Shaw and their colleagues will use the money--along with the matching sum that MSU must provide--to build a high-spectral resolution light detection and ranging (LIDAR) system to study clouds and particles suspended in the atmosphere. That system will be combined with other instruments built by MSU to conduct experiments that Repasky and Shaw hope will one day lead scientists to create more accurate models of earth's climate.

The proposed LIDAR will help further laser research at MSU, where scientists have been working for years on laser- and optics-based sensors. In May, a pair of Repasky's graduate students won prestigious fellowships to study LIDAR and remote-sensing systems at NASA's Langley Research Center.

For more information, visit www.montana.edu.