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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.

  • p. 8 …The sensor must be capable of detecting Earth over a range of orbital radii with a…
  • p. 17 …For the purpose of this report, we envision a Lightcraft Earth-to-Orbit (ETD) transportation system…
  • p. 34 …not only placing nanosats into LEO at low cost (Figure 14), but also for performing much…
  • p. 42 …Each picosat is gravity- gradient stable, has a dipole array facing Earth, and a broader beam…
  • p. 43 …811L¥ push broom scanning mode for complete Earth coverage rather than only sampling coverage. The constellation…
  • p. 72 …The system is single-stage-to-orbit and completely reusable with no onboard propellant required (the…
  • p. 75 …J., et al. (1991), "System Requirements for Low-Earth-Orbit Launch Using Laser Propulsion," in Proc…
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Mitigating the Atmosphere with
Adaptive Optics
• Beacon
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.~
~• The AO System needs to operate (sense, compute, and ad1ust the deformable
I mirror} approx.> 10X faster than the atmosphere changes (-10's -100's hz}
Figure 36. HEL Adaptive Optics System (courtesy of the Directed Energy Professional
Society).
All of these HEL beam control innovations can be quickly adapted to laser propulsion
applications with little or no additional technical modifications or R&DTE. It is expected
that all of the R&DTE work presently being done by the various DoD directed energy
weapons/HEL programs can be immediately leveraged for laser Lightcraft nano-/pico-
satellite programs should they become established. Primary mirrors with exit apertures
of~ 10 m will be required to launch laser-propelled Lightcraft from ground/sea to LEO
while apertures on aircraft-mounted laser beam control optics will be~ 1.0 m.
67
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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.