{"id":24736,"date":"2016-04-16T22:47:05","date_gmt":"2016-04-17T05:47:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2016\/04\/all-of-the-technology-is-nearly-ready-for-megawatt-space-based-laser-systems-for-science-and-planetary-defense"},"modified":"2017-06-04T10:28:28","modified_gmt":"2017-06-04T17:28:28","slug":"all-of-the-technology-is-nearly-ready-for-megawatt-space-based-laser-systems-for-science-and-planetary-defense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2016\/04\/all-of-the-technology-is-nearly-ready-for-megawatt-space-based-laser-systems-for-science-and-planetary-defense","title":{"rendered":"All of the technology is nearly ready for megawatt space based laser systems for science and planetary defense"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/all-of-the-technology-is-nearly-ready-for-megawatt-space-based-laser-systems-for-science-and-planetary-defense.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>California Polytechnic State University researchers propose a system capable of probing the molecular composition of cold solar system targets such as asteroids, comets, planets and moons from a distant vantage.<\/p>\n<p>Their concept utilizes a directed energy beam to vaporize or sublimate a spot on a distant target, such as from a spacecraft near the object. With sufficient flux, our published results indicate that the spot temperature rises rapidly, and evaporation of materials on the target surface occurs (Hughes et al., 2015; Lubin and Hughes, 2015; Lubin et al., 2014). The melted spot serves as a high-temperature blackbody source, and ejected material creates a molecular plume in front of the spot. Molecular and atomic absorption of the blackbody radiation occurs within the ejected plume. Bulk composition of the surface material is investigated by using a spectrometer to view the heated spot through the ejected material. They envision a spacecraft that could be sent to probe the composition of a target asteroid, comet or other planetary body while orbiting the targeted object. The spacecraft would be equipped with an array of lasers and a spectrometer, powered by photovoltaics. Spatial composition maps could be created by scanning the directed energy beam across the surface. Applying the laser beam to a single spot continuously produces a borehole, and shallow sub-surface composition profiling is also possible.<\/p>\n<p>Their initial simulations of laser heating, plume opacity, material absorption profiles and spectral detectivity show promise for molecular composition analysis. Such a system has compelling potential benefit for solar system exploration by establishing the capability to directly interrogate the bulk composition of objects from a distant vantage. They propose to develop models, execute preliminary feasibility analysis, and specify a spacecraft system architecture for a hypothetical mission that seeks to perform surface molecular composition analysis and mapping of a near-earth asteroid (NEA) while the craft orbits the asteroid.<\/p>\n<p><!-- Link: <a href=\"http:\/\/nextbigfuture.com\/2016\/04\/all-of-technology-is-nearly-ready-for.html?m=1\">http:\/\/nextbigfuture.com\/2016\/04\/all-of-technology-is-nearly-ready-for.html?m=1<\/a> --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>California Polytechnic State University researchers propose a system capable of probing the molecular composition of cold solar system targets such as asteroids, comets, planets and moons from a distant vantage. Their concept utilizes a directed energy beam to vaporize or sublimate a spot on a distant target, such as from a spacecraft near the object. [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":354,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1694,1497,224,1514],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-electronics","category-energy","category-science","category-space-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/354"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24736"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24736\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62019,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24736\/revisions\/62019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}