Berlin, Germany.- The first satellite to directly measure wind speeds on Earth, Aeolus, is ready for launch, assured a statement from the European Space Agency (ESA) published.

The last general test of Aeolus, which will start in a Vega rocket from the European spaceport of Kurú (French Guiana), was conducted last Friday at the European Space Operations Center (ESOC), in Darmstadt, Germany, highlights the the Aerospace Updating website. During that test, experts in mission operations, flight dynamics, ground stations and software systems worked together with their counterparts to practice the pre-launch and take-off sequence.

The satellite will carry with it the Aladin instrument, which includes laser technology to direct pulses of ultraviolet light into the atmosphere in order to create a profile of the planet’s winds.

According to the director of Earth Observation Programs of ESA, Josef Aschbacher, Aeolus has presented some technical challenges, but it is still something entirely new, because the breezes had never been measured from the cosmos.

Experts believe that this new mission aims to shed light on how the wind influences the exchange of heat and humidity between the earth’s surface and the atmosphere, two important aspects to understand climate change.