Active Techniques for Ground-based Space Domain Awareness

Commercial ground-based guidestar laser systems are incompatible with the compact nature of military equipment and insufficient for conditions encountered in the field.  Adaptive optics (AO) allow ground-based imagers to overcome atmospheric-distortion-limited observation by using natural and artificial guidestars to measure the distortion and correct for it.  Sodium-layer guidestars provide near all-sky coverage for high resolution astronomy but have seen slow implementation at observatories due to the technical challenges associated with the laser, high costs, operational complexity, large sizes, and environmental constraints. In this proposed Phase II STTR program team of Areté and UCSC will design, build, and test of a SGLS.  The plan uses an Optically Pumped Semiconductor Laser with other components including diagnostics, D2a/ D2b generation, and HC-PCF for transmission of laser radiation to the launch telescope.  The plan includes system installation at Lick and on-sky demonstration of the SGLS with the Shane telescope adaptive optics control system. The motivation for the proposed Optically Pumped Semiconductor-Sodium Guidestar Laser System (OPS-SGLS) with a fiber beam delivery system is twofold.  First, OPSL systems can be produced at lower cost than currently favored systems.  Secondly, the proposed system can be extremely compact and more flexibly deployed in comparison to other SGLS technologies.