Documents / Official release
This Defense Intelligence Reference Document (DIA-08-1011-001), dated 1 November 2010, was prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency's Defense Warning Office under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications program. It covers nanosatellite technologies, laser Lightcraft propulsion, a weapon mission selection study and a multi-megawatt laser study. The author recommends that the Department of Defense, working with NASA, bring laser Lightcraft propulsion research back to the United States and restart the Air Force X-50LR test flight program.
From the source:Release of 2026-09-18 Incident: 11/1/10, Las Vegas, Nevada. Released with redactions. This document is a Defense Intelligence Reference Document (DIRD), a technical reference format used by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to capture baseline knowledge on a specific topic for later analytic use. DIRDs are best understood as reference and synthesis products rather than as original research. It is one of 38 DIRDs produced under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP) between 2009 and 2011. Because AAWSAP’s scope permitted a broad range of supporting topics, not every DIRD in the series directly concerns aerospace systems or future threat assessment. The following summary reflects the DIRD’s scope and framing at the time of writing and should not be read as implying current validation of the concepts discussed. This DIRD examines laser-propelled “Lightcraft” as a possible low-cost method to launch very small satellites into low Earth orbit by using a remote high-energy laser to supply most of the propulsion energy rather than relying entirely on onboard energy sources. The report combines a survey of nanosatellite trends with a review of “Lightcraft” propulsion concepts, vehicle design, beam-control requirements, and mission studies, and argues that the most promising application is the launch of nano- or pico-satellites, especially Earth- and space-observing payloads of a few kilograms or less. It presents the concept as potentially much cheaper than conventional multistage rockets for very small payloads, while also noting significant practical constraints including strict beam-riding geometry, atmospheric losses, demanding pointing and adaptive-optics requirements, and heavy dependence on large ground-, sea-, or air-based laser infrastructure. Overall, the document presents laser “Lightcraft” as a technically plausible launch concept whose attractiveness depends on whether the supporting laser and beam-control system can be made reliable and economical at operational scale.
“Low Earth orbit”8 pages
UNCLASSIFIED/;'POR: OPPICIAE USE 014Lf 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 UNCLASSIFIED'I i'FAA: 061i1Clali.k W&& 8PtLY 69
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Official release, from the pursue 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.