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Defense Intelligence Reference Document Laser Lightcraft Nanosatellites
Defense Intelligence Agency · 77 pages · text from the file's own layer
This Defense Intelligence Reference Document from the Defense Intelligence Agency, dated 1 November 2010, was produced under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications (AAWSA) Program. It describes nanosatellite technologies and proposes launching nanosats into orbit with laser Lightcraft propulsion. It also covers a weapon mission selection study and multi-megawatt laser options. The author recommends that the Department of Defense and NASA bring Lightcraft R&D back to the United States and restart the X-50LR flight demonstration program.
“BEAMS”49 pages
- p. 3 …Free-Electron Laser Electron Beam Phase-Space Evolution ....................... 59
Figure 31. Recirculating-Beam FEL System ........................................................... 60…
- p. 4 …HEL Beam Pointer/Tracker ................................................................... 65
Figure 35. Basic Shared Aperture Beam Control System ......................................... 66
Figure 36…
- p. 7 …This can only be achieved via laser propulsion in
which the laser beam energy that is…
- p. 15 …By launching
spacecraft on a beam of electromagnetic radiation, researchers will have developed the
first new…
- p. 16 …The laser beam's pulse
interacts with the mirror, spreading out and focusing into an annular…
- p. 17 …1) power supply; 2) high-power (megawatt-class)
laser beam generator/transmitter using novel beam optics…
- p. 20 …is to the right and the laser beam strikes the stretched-out parabolic
mirror/propulsion section…
- p. 21 …It
requires a beam power of 0.1 to 1 MW per kg of vehicle mass…
- p. 22 …The ground-based
megawatt-class laser beam generator is state-of-the-art technology. The cost…
- p. 25 …Figure 8 illustrates the adverse beam
propagation geometry associated with ETO laser propulsion by means of…
- p. 26 …Attenuation Effects on Captured Laser Beam Power 261.
0.4
0.J
0.2
0.1…
- p. 27 …Unfortunately the demonstrated laser beam power levels for the attractive 1.62 μm
wavelength, which suffered…
- p. 28 …Beam combining
of several 1 MW (or higher) FELs can achieve a total combined beam output…
- p. 31 …Appropriate rotation of a high-energy laser beam,
emanating from a ground/sea-based laser, guides…
- p. 32 …Appropriate rotation and translation of a high-energy laser
beam, emanating from a moving aircraft, guides…
- p. 33 …But
multiple target interception within allowable time is limited by relatively long beam-
riding time needed…
- p. 37 …In this case, it is envisioned that the high-
pulsed power within high-energy laser beams…
- p. 39 …In this case, airborne laser beams at 12 km altitude will not suffer the
significant propagation…
- p. 41 …sidelobes, creates multiple beams, and steers the ensemble of the
individual beams anywhere on Earth. The…
- p. 42 …Each picosat is gravity-
gradient stable, has a dipole array facing Earth, and a broader beam…
- p. 43 …Commands for beam sweep delays are superimposed on the time delays of each
nanosat. Each nanosat…
- p. 44 …piezoelectric membrane kept flat by an electron beam in response to an optical figure
sensor. MEMS…
- p. 46 …technical issues include large wavelength and
atmospheric absorption of the laser beam.
• Carbon Monoxide (CO) Laser…
- p. 47 …125 Hz@ 20μs.
• Laser power, P = 2.5 MW/beam x 4 beams = 10 MW.
• Laser…
- p. 50 …Each power oscillator optics module transmitting a 2.5 MW beam of
10.6 μm wavelength…
- p. 52 …Adding an eight amplifier chain that the system was designed for will
increase the beam power…
- p. 53 …However,
BSSSL beam power can be scaled up further by improving presently known gain media
and…
- p. 54 …scalable
to 1 MW beam power within 2 years.
Typical solid-state lasers have the following…
- p. 55 …A new technology that enables the scaling-up of BSSSL beam power is a recently
developed…
- p. 56 …at the same time increasing the average
beam power.
Figure 21. Phase Change Materials Allow Storage…
- p. 57 …This exponential growth in beam output power is the result of many factors,
including the parallel…
- p. 58 …Microlens -O _
,:1
Incoherent Beam Combining 'Ind1vidually Incoherent Gaussian Beams i=L
Controlled
/_/Steering • ... o~bined…
- p. 59 …Neodymium
Thulium (Tm 3+), Holmium
- Range of beam wavelengths(),) produced: 0.48 μm to 2.9…
- p. 61 …Multlmode Fiber Lasers
50kW Multimode
Output beam quality BPP-1 o
M"2-33
DC EDE…
- p. 62 …The resulting laser beam photon energy depends on the
electron energy, the undulator period, and (weakly…
- p. 63 UNCLASSIFIED/ /F8~ 8FFl&I.«1k WliEii a,.klf
electron beam
( \ I,:--- ■■>ti■--
undulator
)
resonator mirror
0…
- p. 64 …The superconducting accelerator gives good
efficiency and gradient while recirculation of the electron beam recovers beam…
- p. 65 UNCLASSIFIED/ /F&~ 8FFHiil.«1k 1!181! &••kY
- K"' 1.5.t
• Electron Beam:
- Photocathode injector creates…
- p. 66 …HIGH ENERGY LASER BEAM CONTROL
··costs could be reduced to as low as $20 per kg…
- p. 67 …The typical HEL beam control system includes:++ 1) a gimbaled
beam director, 2) tracking and pointing…
- p. 68 UNCLASSIFIED//F&II. &FFiii,111!! l!llili &HI!¥
A novel new HEL beam control architecture being…
- p. 69 …HEL Beam Pointer/Tracker (courtesy of the Directed Energy Professional
Society).
In summary, this new architecture…
- p. 70 …The BILL is a solid-state, kilowatt-class laser
that measures atmospheric conditions, allowing the beam…
- p. 71 …All of these HEL beam control innovations can be quickly adapted to laser propulsion
applications with…
- p. 72 …The entire Lightcraft launch
system is comprised of a ground, sea, or airborne laser beam generator…
- p. 73 …New beam
control devices and high-power optical train combinations have a resulting beam line
that…
- p. 75 …N. (1983), "Advanced Beamed-Energy and Field Propulsion Concepts,"
BDM/W-83-225-TR, BDM Corp…
- p. 76 …N. (2001), "World Record Flights of Beam-Riding Rocket Lightcraft:
Demonstration of 'Disruptive' Propulsion Technology," AIAA…
- p. 77 …of the 6 th Int'! Symposium on Beamed Energy
Propulsion, edited by C. R. Phipps, AIP…
UNCLASSIFIED//F811. 8FFll!IAI! l!l!il! 8Hl:Y
6
- •Radiated Laser
~ so· Power= 10 MW Laser Beam
:; 60" 70" Angle from
- 5
" 7~ the Vertical
• t• ' 80"
i" I
'" 4 1£od ofLaser1~
;:; :Airbreathingl 2.9
~ Propulsion : 1.62 micron 83° MW
" Laser Wavelength~ 3
i I _._I• I
•=Q.
Lightcraft}!
•u 2 • Lightcraft
• '• Capture Dia . I Achievement or:
•I:. of30 em : Orbital Speed 1
• 11.2 micron ' \' 04• ' I •
" Laser Wavelength 1 I MW
.:i '.....J0
100 200 300 400 500
LiJ::htcraft Slant Range from Laser (km)
Figure 13. Influence of Lightcraft Range and Pointing Angles on Captured Power [261.
The physics and technology of FELs will allow beam power to be scaled up to 1 MW or
higher as long as thermal loading of the beam optics and electron losses in the electron
beam recirculation loop can be mitigated using engineering solutions. Beam combining
of several 1 MW (or higher) FELs can achieve a total combined beam output power of
10 MW (or higher). Other newly emerging high-power laser technology that show
promise for achieving megawatt-class beam power include bulk slab solid-state and
high-power fiber lasers; the former has already achieved over 100 kW of beam power
while the latter is getting close to it. Present megawatt-class lasers that are based on
available proven technology include a proposal for a 5-beam, 2.5 MW per beam,
electron gun-driven CO2/gas mixture laser which combines five laser beams to achieve
10 MW of total beam output power. These systems will be described further in Chapter
4.
LIFE CYCLE OF LIGHTCRAFT SYSTEM
Froning and Davis [26] found that ground-based laser costs comprised the major
portion of a Lightcraft ETO transportation system - with ground-based laser costs
comprising about 80% of the total laser Lightcraft system life-cycle cost (LCC). The
LCC of a laser Lightcraft ETO transportation system was estimated using Lightcraft
vehicle and ground-based laser cost inputs from AFRLJPRSP together with
programmatic cost inputs from another cost database. Table 1 shows the
programmatic assumptions together with the system acquisition and operation costs for
the various Lightcraft vehicle and ground-based laser system elements. Laser
acquisition and operation costs were assumed to be shared with another user and all
operations costs are reduced to one-half those values estimated from historical data.
Launch costs are seen to be extremely low (only $74,141 per flight) with laser-
24
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