Lifetime data is presented for ruggedized commercial NPRO lasers used in the Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES) Instrument on NASA's Aura Earth-orbiting spacecraft, including 20 years of data from two life test units on the ground, 12 years of on-orbit data from TES Laser A, and 2 years of on-orbit data from TES Laser B. The TES lasers are diode-pumped Non-Planar Ring Oscillator (NPRO) lasers using Nd:YAG crystals. Since accelerated life testing was not possible on the complete laser, early prototype lasers that had gone through thermal cycling and vibration testing were placed on non-accelerated life tests with the hope of gathering at least a couple of years of data before launch. Long-term lifetime data for hybrid laser systems in space applications is not abundant, and out of necessity, accelerated reliability testing is usually done over a relatively short time with a large number of devices. The data presented in this paper is unique as it tracks the optical power output over time of a total of four lasers on the order of decades rather than months or years. Two of the lasers have each been on life test for over 20 years on the ground and are still operating, and the other two lasers have been on-orbit for 14 years. TES Laser A was still operating when the TES Instrument was decommissioned in January 2018. Therefore, the data presented covers over 450,000 non-accelerated device-hours, with 23% of those hours being in space.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.