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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.
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UNCLASSIFIED/ )f81il errI@It!IL ""E one I spacecraft. This creates coherent RF or optical apertures that are essentially unlimited in size, which could offer unprecedented high-resolution radiometry, hyperspectral imaging, radar, and RF interception (for mapping, surveying, MASINT, SIGNIT), etc. Launching laser-propelled Lightcraft nano-/pico-satellites to LEO requires megawatt- class lasers. TEXTRON Systems Corporation's proposed 10 MW electron gun-driven CO2/gas mixture laser is a multi-megawatt-class system that can be implemented now because this technology requires little or no additional R&D. This system offers realistic near-term, low-cost Lightcraft launch capability. However, this system is large, requires a large amount of gas propellant to fuel the laser, and the system infrastructure will cost over $200 million. The newly emergent bulk slab solid-state, high-power fiber, and free-electron laser technologies being explored by the various DoD directed energy weapons programs offer higher electrical-to-optical efficiencies and overall laser performance, compact and portable system size, less complexity and smaller weight, all at much lower system and infrastructure cost. These lasers are scalable to megawatt-class beam power, and so we roughly estimate that the overall system and infrastructure cost to deploy such laser systems to launch a Lightcraft to LEO will be from several factors to an order of magnitude (or more) lower than for the electron gun-driven CO2/gas mixture laser system. Removing the waste heat produced by high-power laser systems is an important factor driving the physical limitations of scaling up the beam output power. An innovative matched-refractive-index liquid is used to rapidly remove the heat produced by a 150 kW bulk slab solid-state laser weapon while the very high surface area-to-volume ratio of high-power fiber lasers allows for the rapid removal of heat from the gain medium without the need for external cooling. Phase-change materials are being explored and devices using such materials have recently demonstrated the ability to store very large quantities of the waste heat produced by high-power solid-state lasers, which is a different way of rapidly removing large amounts of heat from the solid-state gain medium. Unlike solid-state laser systems, free-electron lasers are not affected by heat problems while their gain medium (a vacuum) cannot be damaged. Launching a laser-propelled Lightcraft nanosat/picosat from the ground, sea, or air into LEO requires controlling and steering the high-energy laser beam, while at the same time making real-time adjustments to account for platform motion, optical train and atmospheric effects on beam propagation, so that the beam maintains high quality, low-loss, precision contact with the Lightcraft during the entire flight. Recent technical innovations in optical train design and other system architecture have evolved beam control devices for high-energy laser weapons toward new implementations. New beam control devices and high-power optical train combinations have a resulting beam line that is considerably simpler, smaller and lighter than current architectures. Almost every component in the beam line performs multiple functions, thereby dramatically reducing the high-power optical component count. This approach also packages all beam control sensors, processors and drivers into a single turret assembly. In 2005, the AFRL/PRSP (Edwards AFB, CA) concluded their laser Lightcraft propulsion R&DTE program before launching a Lightcraft test vehicle into LEO was demonstrated 69 UNCLASSIFIED/ ,'1'81l 81'1'1@111it 1!1!11!! 8HLV
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Report, from the dia collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 77 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.