There is a well-recognized need for new orbital 3-dimensional (3-D) wind measurements to improve weather prediction and understanding of atmospheric processes. A new airborne, coherent-detection Doppler wind lidar system called the Aerosol Wind Profiler (AWP) has recently been developed at NASA to address community wind measurement needs and demonstrate technologies needed for an orbital wind lidar mission, leveraging decades of NASA Langley Research Center and industry partner experience with wind lidar instrumentation. This paper describes the AWP instrument, data collection methods, and 3-D wind profile retrieval methods applied to data from its first science campaigns that occurred from September–November 2024. Additional demonstrations of AWP observations and their validation are provided in Part II of this paper.