Agile Optical Phased Arrays for Microspacecraft

Means of steering high power optical beams by means of compact low mass technology suitable for spacecraft and microspacecraft were addressed. Non-mechanical means were sought that permit redirection of the beam over half space in times of the order of 1 microsecond or less. The effort included means for steering of optical pulses as well as continuous optical beams. The large apertures needed in space applications and the interest in structures having minimum mass and volume required attention to thin film structures with rapid switching capability that could produce large group delay in a compact structure. Mechanisms for both group delay and phase delay control were examined. New technology was identified in the form of a novel microresonator based switching element employing photonic band structures. The technology explored appears consistent with extrapolation to high average power, e.g., multi-megawatts. The work examined double clad optical fiber as the amplifying element, but also initiated an examination of a novel class of free space amplifiers. A microsatellite was launched and placed in orbit, but a telemetry problem prevented active acquisition of data from the satellite