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The Defense Intelligence Agency produced this reference document, dated 31 March 2010, under its Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications (AAWSA) Program. It reviews the state of the art and likely evolution of high-energy laser weapons, including chemical, solid-state, fiber and free-electron lasers, as well as beam control and the history of DoD laser research. It concludes that electrically powered lasers could make megawatt-class weapons practical and that spacecraft laser weapons are conceivable within 20 years. It also recommends ways to protect spacecraft from laser damage.
“The Advance”10 pages
UNCLASSIFIED/ ,'1"1!11'- l!ll"l"!!!llit tl!II!! l!IHLY . - ·0- sensor -· Tracker E Stabilization Electronics • 0 El • sensor . -. -·- Mount 0 drive f--~'.__--1t:::::::::i, Gimbal Figure 10. HEL Weapon Basic Tracking and Pointing Controls The concept described above and illustrated in Figure 10 was used for beam control systems until the 1980s. At that point, there was a desire for higher performance systems using larger pointing telescopes but with . -.- \ 0 error 0 HEL lower jitter. This conflicting set of requirements (more massive telescopes and higher structural resonant frequencies) was first resolved in the Sealite Beam Director (SLBD) shown in Figure 11. Instead of attaching the IRU to the pointing and tracking telescopes then attempting to mechanically stabilize them, the IRU was loosely mounted inside the pointing telescope. Using an optical reference attached to the IRU, its measurement of base motion disturbance was relayed to the SLBD's optical alignment sensors which commanded small fast steering mirrors to stabilize the HEL beam. The large telescope was then allowed to experience the base motion disturbance Figure 11. SeaLite Beam Director even though the HEL beam passing through it was stabilized. 14 UNCLASSIFIED/ /Pett err1e1111t "32 one I e,arget
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Report, from the dia collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 31 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.