Paper
20 September 2005 Micro-gravity and contamination roles in spaceflight laser failures
Hossin A. Abdeldayem, Edward Dowdye, John Canham, Shahin Ghazanshahi
Author Affiliations +
Abstract
NASA is striving to develop a scientific understanding of the universe, the Earth-Sun System and the Earth's response to natural or human-induced changes. Space lasers are vital tools for NASA's missions to advance our understanding of space research and improving our prediction capability for climate, and natural hazards. Unfortunately, several past spaceflight missions that utilized lasers proved to be short-lived and unreliable. In this paper, we are shedding more light on the contamination issue in the absence of gravity. We performed a set of relevant experiments on liquids and subsequently correlated the results to the spaceflight laser environment. We found that in the absence of gravity the contamination plays a major role in spaceflight laser failures. We also proposed a methodology using the adsorption mechanism to be adopted in future spaceflight lasers to minimize the presence of contaminants in the laser compartment.
© (2005) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Hossin A. Abdeldayem, Edward Dowdye, John Canham, and Shahin Ghazanshahi "Micro-gravity and contamination roles in spaceflight laser failures", Proc. SPIE 5912, Operational Characteristics and Crystal Growth of Nonlinear Optical Materials II, 59120H (20 September 2005); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.615368
Advertisement
Advertisement
RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS
Get copyright permission  Get copyright permission on Copyright Marketplace
KEYWORDS
Contamination

Optical damage

Laser systems engineering

Molecules

Adsorption

Particles

Chemical species

Back to Top