Documents / Report
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.
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 UNCLASSIFIED/ /1"91t 91"1"1!11111: tl!II! 9111: I
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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.