As part of the European Space Agency's AEOLUS mission, the global wind distribution in the atmosphere is currently being measured with a satellite based Doppler lidar. For the AEOLUS-2 mission, a more powerful laser is required which can emit single frequency pulses of 150 mJ energy at a pulse repetition rate of 50 Hz and a wavelength of 355 nm. Fraunhofer ILT is currently developing an engineering model of the laser beam source in cooperation with Airbus Defense and Space Germany. The work on the laser housing and heat removal system is performed by Airbus whereas the work on the laser opto-mechanical assembly is performed by ILT. This work is based on the results of previous projects and focuses on maximizing the use of heritage: The required optical parameters in the infrared have been validated by means of a breadboard demonstrator within the NIRLI project and the optomechanical platform suitable for AEOLUS-2 has been developed in the frame of the OPTOMECH, FULAS and MERLIN projects. For the engineering model presented in this article the proven optical design supplemented by a frequency tripling unit is transferred to the proven and to a large extent space qualified optomechanical platform with an adapted heat removal system. The design is ready, pending the detailed review.
For a study of the European Space Agency ESA, Fraunhofer ILT developed and built single-frequency, linearly polarized, power-stabilized fiber amplifiers as elegant breadboard (EBB) with an output power <3 W for the future space-based gravitational wave detector LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna). The fiber amplifier developed at Fraunhofer ILT in a previous phase has fulfilled most of the optical performance requirements, except the relative intensity noise (RIN) [1]. In this paper, we present our revised and optimized fiber amplifier which now, in addition to the earlier demonstrated parameters, fulfills the LISA RIN requirements. Currently, the engineering model (EM) of the chosen fiber amplifier concept is being implemented by our project partner SpaceTech GmbH. Furthermore, since the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of the components has to be confirmed for the EM, Fraunhofer ILT conducted 1000hours operational long-term tests of the components installed in a thermal-vacuum chamber and 2-weeks nonoperational tests in a thermal cycling chamber to qualify them for space applications.
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