ARAT (Avion de Recherche Atmospherique et de Teledetection) is owned and operated by IGN (Institut Geopgraphique National) and managed by INSU, an institute of CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique). ARAT is a versatile flying laboratory offering several scientific configurations: basic meteorological instrumentation, turbulent flux equipment, radiation measurement, microphysics sensors, in-situ and remote sensing chemistry instruments, aerosol lidar, Earth Observation instrumentation, etc... The aircraft is based in Italy.