ICESat-2 laser technology readiness level evolution

Sawruk, Nicholas W.; Burns, Patrick; Edwards, Ryan; Wysocki, Theodore; VanTuijl, Andre; Litvinovitch, Viatcheslav; Sullivan, Edmund J.; Hovis, Floyd E.

doi:10.1117/12.2080531

Cited by 9 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 1 publication

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“…These adjustments are super‐imposed on a gradual long‐term decline in transmit energy. ATLAS is currently transmitting at laser energy level 4 (of 11), where each energy level step represents an approximately 10% change in transmit energy (Neumann et al., 2019; Sawruk et al., 2015). As described above, we correct signal photons/pulse to account for the laser energy changes before and after safehold, so the observed decrease in the corrected signal photon rate (e.g., Table 1 or Figure 3) has been corrected for transmitted laser power changes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On‐Orbit Radiometric Performance on ICESat‐2

Gibbons¹,

Neumann

Hancock³

et al. 2021

Earth and Space Science

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The Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite -2 (ICESat-2) observatory launched on September 15, 2018 with objectives to measure changes in ice sheet elevation, monitor sea ice freeboard, and enable a global assessment of vegetation and canopy height (Markus et al., 2017). ICESat-2 uses green laser light emitted by the Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System (ATLAS) as the basis for elevation measurements between 88° north and south latitudes (Martino et al., 2019). ATLAS provides the data necessary for ground processing to calculate the round-trip photon time-of-flight from the observatory to Earth and back again. These components are combined with the laser beam pointing vectors (Bae & Webb, 2017) and the position of the observatory in space (Luthcke et al., 2019) to generate the Global Geolocated Photon data product (ATL03) (Neumann et al., 2020a(Neumann et al., , 2020b) which provides a unique latitude, longitude, and elevation for each photon event telemetered for ground processing and an initial discrimination between a band of signal photons (emitted by ATLAS and reflected by Earth) and background photons (emitted by the sun in the same part of the electromagnetic spectrum). Schematics of the ATLAS transmitter and receiver are found in Neumann et al., 2019, Figures 2 and 3 respectively.The ATLAS telescope collects incoming light and is fiber-coupled to filters which only transmit light of the same wavelength as emitted by ATLAS (532 nm ± 0.15) (Neumann et al., 2019). After passing through these filters, light for a given spot is distributed across the elements of a multi-element photomultiplier tube to convert optical energy to electrical energy to be time tagged (a photon event) for further analysis. The ATL03 product is organized by ground tracks, which refer to the relative location of the 6 beams on the ground. Since the spacecraft orientation changes every ∼9 months in order to optimize the position of the solar array relative to the sun, ATLAS strong and weak spots change their relative orientation (from left to right). We organize our analyses by ATLAS spots which do not change with spacecraft orientation. ATLAS spots are numbered 1-6 indicating laser illumination from the instrument field of view, where 1, 3, and 5 are "strong" spots and have four times the energy of spots 2, 4, and 6, referred to as "weak" spots. Each of the three ATLAS strong spots have 16 detection elements (pixels) which supply 16 individual timing channels. Similarly, each of the three ATLAS weak spots have four independent pixels and timing channels (Martino Abstract NASA's ICESat-2 mission measures Earth's elevation with the Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System (ATLAS), a 6-beam photon-counting laser altimeter. The Global Geolocated Photon data product (ATL03) is the primary source of photon information used by surface-type-specific higherlevel products, along with the Atmospheric Layer Characteristics product (ATL09). ATL03 provides time-tagged, geolocated photon heights referenced to the ellipsoid and a paramete...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On‐Orbit Radiometric Performance on ICESat‐2

Gibbons¹,

Neumann

Hancock³

et al. 2021

Earth and Space Science

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“…The combination of early prototype aging, EDU-2 aging and MOPA brassboard aging [5] gave degradation pattern as the function of fluence stress. This is summarized in Table 4.…”

Section: Life-time Predictionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The conceptual design considerations for the laser can be found in [2]. The technological development and qualification of various aspects of the laser can be found in [3,4,5,6]. The optical design of the laser is a master oscillator/power amplifier (MOPA) that includes an actively Q-switched short-pulse oscillator, a pre-amplifier, and a dual-stage power amplifier.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Three-year aging of prototype flight laser at 10 kHz and 1 ns pulses with external frequency doubler for ICESat-2 mission

Konoplev

Chiragh²,

Vasilyev

et al. 2016

Laser Technology for Defense and Security XII

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We present the results of three year life-aging of a specially designed prototype flight source laser operating at 1064 nm, 10 kHz, 1ns, 15W average power and external frequency doubler. The Fibertek-designed, slightly pressurized air, enclosed-container source laser operated at 1064 nm in active Q-switching mode. The external frequency doubler was set in a clean room at a normal air pressure. The goal of the experiment was to measure degradation modes at 1064 and 532 nm discreetly. The external frequency doubler consisted of a Lithium triborate, LiB3O5, crystal operated at non-critical phase-matching. Due to 1064 nm diagnostic needs, the amount of fundamental frequency power available for doubling was 13.7W. The power generated at 532 nm was between 8.5W and 10W, depending on the level of stress and degradation. The life-aging consisted of double stress-step operation for doubler crystal, at 0.35 J/cm 2 for almost 1 year, corresponding to normal conditions, and then at 0.93 J/cm 2 for the rest of the experiment, corresponding to accelerated testing. We observed no degradation at the first step and linear degradation at the second step. The linear degradation at the second stress-step was related to doubler crystal output surface changes and linked to laser-assisted contamination. We discuss degradation model and estimate the expected lifetime for the flight laser at 532 nm. This work was done within the laser testing for NASA's Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) LIDAR at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD with the goal of 1 trillion shots lifetime.

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“…n the past 20+ years, we have successfully developed and flown lidars [1,2,3] for mapping Mars [4,5,6,7], Earth [8,9], Mercury [10] and the Moon [11] based on diode-pump solid state laser (DPSSL) technology [12,13,14,15,16]. More recently, two Earth orbiting laser-based missions were launched to continue Earth observing science applications based on DPSSL technology [17,18,19,20,21]. As laser and electrooptics technologies continue to expand and mature, more sophisticated instruments that once were thought to be too complicated for space are being considered and developed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Rather than low-repetitionrate (1-100 Hz) high-peak-power systems, we are investigating high-repetition-rate modest peak-power instruments for new space instrumentation. Indeed, the ICESat-2 mission adapted the use of a micro-pulse lidar approach in using a high repetition rate, lower pulse energy laser to meet the science objectives [17,18,19]. For some of the applications, especially for satellites orbiting planets that have an atmosphere, backscattering from the atmosphere may restrict the repetition rate of the laser transmitter due to range ambiguity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Orbiting and In-Situ Lidars for Earth and Planetary Applications

Troupaki

et al. 2021

IEEE J. Sel. Top. Appl. Earth Observations Remote Sensing

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At NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), we have been developing spaceborne lidar instruments for space sciences. We have successfully flown several missions in the past based on mature diode pumped solid-state laser transmitters. In recent years we have been developing advanced laser technologies for applications such as laser spectroscopy, laser communications, and interferometry. In this paper, we will discuss recent experimental progress on these systems and instrument prototypes for ongoing development efforts.

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ICESat-2 laser technology readiness level evolution

Cited by 9 publications

References 1 publication

On‐Orbit Radiometric Performance on ICESat‐2

On‐Orbit Radiometric Performance on ICESat‐2

Three-year aging of prototype flight laser at 10 kHz and 1 ns pulses with external frequency doubler for ICESat-2 mission

Orbiting and In-Situ Lidars for Earth and Planetary Applications

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