The Na LGS generated by laser on the near space aircraft platform

Abstract We present a new configuration of the Na laser guide star (LGS) system with the laser source placed on the near space aircraft platform. Model of the Na LGS with the new configuration is established and the working principle is analyzed in detail. Under the rural environment with 23 km visibility and the H-V 5/7 atmospheric turbulent model, performances of the Na LGS with the new configuration and the conventional configuration are calculated, respectively. Results show that performance of the Na LGS can be significantly improved by using the new configuration, the uplink transmittance can be improved from 64.7% to 99.8%, diameter of the Na LGS can be decreased from 3.03 m to 0.36 m, and number of photons received can be improved from 536 photons cm −2  s −1 to 828 photons cm −2  s −1 .

[1]  Donald C. Washburn,et al.  The magic of relay mirrors , 2004, SPIE Defense + Commercial Sensing.

[2]  B. Welsh,et al.  Design and performance analysis of adaptive optical telescopes using lasing guide stars , 1990, Proc. IEEE.

[3]  Jacques M. Beckers,et al.  Sodium beacon wavefront sensing for the Euro50 telescope in the presence of perspective elongation , 2004, Extremely Large Telescopes.

[4]  Donald T. Gavel,et al.  Image improvement from a sodium-layer laser guide star adaptive optics system , 1997 .

[5]  D. S. Acton,et al.  First Light Adaptive Optics Images from the Keck II Telescope: A New Era of High Angular Resolution Imagery , 2000 .

[6]  James Roger P. Angel,et al.  Field tests of dynamic refocus of Rayleigh laser beacons , 2003, SPIE Optics + Photonics.

[7]  James M. Spinhirne,et al.  Two generations of laser-guide-star adaptive-optics experiments at the Starfire Optical Range , 1994 .

[8]  N. Izenberg,et al.  The landing of the NEAR-Shoemaker spacecraft on asteroid 433 Eros , 2001, Nature.

[9]  V. Michau,et al.  Photon return analysis of a polychromatic laser guide star , 2000 .

[10]  James Roger P. Angel,et al.  Design and testing of a dynamic refocus system for Rayleigh laser beacons , 2003, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[11]  Charles A. Primmerman,et al.  Adaptive optics research at Lincoln Laboratory , 1992 .

[12]  Chester S. Gardner,et al.  Experiments on laser guide stars at Mauna Kea Observatory for adaptive imaging in astronomy , 1987, Nature.

[13]  Richard M Clare,et al.  Modeling low order aberrations in laser guide star adaptive optics systems. , 2007, Optics express.