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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.
“Edwards Air Force Base”2 pages
UNCLASSIFIED/ /1"91t 91'fll!lit.l! l!llili ,nu,,, plasma, creating downward thrust expansion. Multiple laser pulses and an atmospheric refresh of breakdown air generate the flight. This airbreathing pulsed-detonation engine concept owes its origins to the German V-1 "Buzz Bomb" of WW II which ran on aviation fuel. For the purpose of this report, we envision a Lightcraft Earth-to-Orbit (ETD) transportation system that operates according to the following scenario. The airbreathing engine mode develops quasi-steady thrust by pulsing at a variable rate that depends on the Mach number and altitude flown along the flight trajectory to orbit. Once the Lightcraft reaches very high altitude and climbs above the atmosphere, it begins to operate in the thermal rocket mode using onboard propellant to convert and expand the laser energy for propulsion. The Lightcraft is spin-stabilized and can be launched vertically upward or on a slant upward trajectory, hover in mid-air, and undergo powered descent and landing. The ground-based laser beam generator system consists of the following: 1) power supply; 2) high-power (megawatt-class) laser beam generator/transmitter using novel beam optics; and 3) automated tracking, hand-off and safety systems. HISTORY OF THE LIGHTCRAFT TECHNOLOGY DEMONSTRATION PROGRAM The laser Lightcraft project originally grew out of the Lightcraft Technology Demonstration Program funded by the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDID) Laser Propulsion Program in the late 1980's. In the 1990's, a joint program involving the NASA-Marshall Space Flight Center and the Propulsion Sciences and Advanced Concepts Division of the AFRL Propulsion Directorate developed and tested an experiment to determine the feasibility of using high-power pulsed lasers to launch a spacecraft into orbit. Successful tests at the White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) High Energy Laser Systems Test Facility (HELSTF) demonstrated the first passively controlled vertical free flight of an object that was propelled by the U.S. Army's 10 kW Pulsed Laser Vulnerability Test System (PLVTS) infrared CO2 laser. Laser boost capability was demonstrated at the HELSTF with a Lightcraft reaching 43 m vertically in 2-second gyroscopically stabilized free flights, which was followed by horizontal guide-wire flights of 121.9 m lasting 10 to 20 seconds (see Figure 2 through Figure 6). A subsequent series of test flights achieved an altitude of 38. 7 m. L. Myrabo (private communication, Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst., Troy, NY, 2009) recently reported vertical Lightcraft test flights achieving 68 m altitude. This achievement can be compared to the first successful flights of Robert Goddard's liquid propellant chemical rocket, which attained a height of 12.5 m after a 2.5 second burn in March 1926. In sharp contrast with Goddard's rockets, there is absolutely no fuel on board the prototype Lightcraft, which has a diameter of 10 cm, mass of 20 to 40 g, and is machined from a solid block of 6061-T6 aluminum. Five different Lightcraft designs have been flight-tested using the pointing and tracking system on the PLVTS laser. Current Lightcraft designs are limited to about 60 g mass and 15 cm in diameter by the PLVTS laser. A megawatt-class laser will be necessary for a larger kilo-class Lightcraft to reach orbit and components for these lasers exist, which would demonstrate the feasibility of this technology for low cost access to space. 13 UNCLASSIFIED/ /P81il 8PPI@Itlit 1!181!!! e,•t\f
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Report, from the dia collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 77 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.