Plants, Michael | Search NASA

NASA NTRS2018

Fiber-Based Laser Transmitter Technology Maturation for Spectroscopic Measurements from Space

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center has been developing lidar to remotely measure CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere. We have advanced the tunable laser technology to enable high-fidelity measurements from space. In this paper, we will report on the progress of fiber-based, 1.57-micron wavelength, laser transmitter that has demonstrated the optical performance required for a low earth orbiting instrument. The laser transmitter has been packaged and is undergoing environmental testing to demonstrate its technology readiness for space.

Laser and Masers↗

NASA NTRS2018

Fiber-Based Laser MOPA Transmitter Packaging for Space Environment

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center has been developing lidar to remotely measure CO2 and CH4 in the Earth’s atmosphere. The ultimate goal is to make space-based satellite measurements with global coverage. We are working on maturing the technology readiness of a fiber-based, 1.57-micron wavelength laser transmitter designed for use in atmospheric CO2 remote-sensing. To this end, we are building a ruggedized prototype to demonstrate the required power and performance and survive the required environment. We are building a fiber-based master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) laser transmitter architecture. The laser is a wavelength-locked, single frequency, externally modulated DBR operating at 1.57-micron followed by erbium-doped fiber amplifiers. The last amplifier stage is a polarization-maintaining, very-large-mode-area fiber with ~1000 μm2 effective area pumped by a Raman fiber laser. The optical output is single-frequency, one microsecond pulses with >450 μJ pulse energy, 7.5 KHz repetition rate, single spatial mode, and > 20 dB polarization extinction.

Lasers and Masers↗

NASA NTRS2011

Airborne Lidar Surface Topography (LIST) Simulator

In this paper we will discuss our development effort of an airborne instrument as a pathfinder for the Lidar Surface Technology (LIST) mission. This paper will discuss the system approach, enabling technologies, instrument concept and performance of the Airborne LIST Simulator (A-LISTS).

Yu, Anthony W.↗