Related papers: Minimum Safe Distances for DE-STAR Space Lasers
Directed energy for planetary defense is now a viable option and is superior in many ways to other proposed technologies, being able to defend the Earth against all known threats. This paper presents basic ideas behind a directed energy…
Directed energy phased array (DEPA) systems have been proposed for novel applications such as beaming optical power for electrical use on remote sensors, rovers, spacecraft and future moon bases, as well as planetary defense against…
Laser ablation of a Near-Earth Object (NEO) on a collision course with Earth produces a cloud of ejecta which exerts a thrust on the NEO, deflecting it from its original trajectory. Ablation may be performed from afar by illuminating an…
High power Earth and orbital-based directed energy (DE) systems pose a potential hazard to Earth orbiting spacecraft. The use of very high power, large aperture DE systems to propel spacecraft is being pursued as the only known, feasible…
Space debris is a major problem for all space-active nations. Adopting high precision measuring techniques will help to produce the reliable and accurate catalogue for space debris and collision avoidance. Laser Ranging is a kind of…
We present a time-dependent, end-to-end framework for laser power beaming from cislunar orbits to the lunar surface. The model links on-orbit generation (solar arrays and wall-plug to optical), terrain-masked visibility and range, beam…
The laser-ranged satellite LARES is expected to provide new refined measurements of relativistic physics, as well as significant contributions to space geodesy and geophysics. The very low area-to-mass ratio of this passive and dense…
This paper presents the design of a multi-spacecraft system for the deflection of asteroids. Each spacecraft is equipped with a fibre laser and a solar concentrator. The laser induces the sublimation of a portion of the surface of the…
We consider synchronized trains of sub-picosecond pulses generated by mode-locked lasers applied to deflection of near Earth objects (NEO) on collision course with Earth. Our method is designed to avoid a predicted collision of the NEO with…
Robust laser delivery and stabilization are key components in atom-based quantum technologies, such as quantum computing. Moving these technologies towards product-like deployment requires scalable, compact, cost-effective, and upgradable…
Laser-electron beam collisions that aim to generate electron-positron pairs require laser intensities $I \gtrsim 10^{21} ~\textrm{W/cm}^2$, which can be obtained by focusing a 1-PW optical laser to a spot smaller than 10 $~\mu$m. Spatial…
Lasers with long coherence time and narrow linewidth are an essential tool for quantum sensors and clocks. Ultrastable cavities and laser systems are now commercially available with fractional frequency instabilities in the mid $10^{-16}$…
Cometary impacts pose a long-term hazard to life on Earth. Impact mitigation techniques have been studied extensively, but they tend to focus on asteroid diversion. Typical asteroid interdiction schemes involve spacecraft physically…
Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR) is an established technique providing very accurate position measurements of satellites in Earth orbit. However, despite decades of development, it remains a complex and expensive technology, which impedes its…
We searched high resolution spectra of 5600 nearby stars for emission lines that are both inconsistent with a natural origin and unresolved spatially, as would be expected from extraterrestrial optical lasers. The spectra were obtained with…
For exploration of space, in particular in attempts to find new extra-terrestrial resources, human society has encountered the problem of space pollution with human-made debris, which represents high risks for space missions. This prompted…
Dense positrons are shown to be effectively generated from laser-solid interactions in the strong-field quantum electrodynamics (QED) regime. Whether these positrons are polarized has not yet been reported, limiting their potential…
Orbital debris in low Earth orbit (LEO) are now sufficiently dense that the use of LEO space is threatened by runaway collisional cascading. A problem predicted more than thirty years ago, the threat from debris larger than about 1 cm…
Space debris has been posing a serious threat to human space activities and is needed to be measured and cataloged. As a new technology of space target surveillance, the measurement accuracy of DRLR (Diffuse Reflection Laser Ranging) is…
Recent proposals for datacenters in sun-synchronous Low Earth Orbit rely on a large number of compute satellites formation-flying in dense clusters. Designing such satellite clusters requires optimizing the satellites' orbital geometry…