Qualification and selection of flight diode lasers for the NuSTAR space mission

Author

Meras, Patrick, Jr. ; Cooper, Mark ; Dillon, R. Peter ; Forouhar, Siamak ; Gontijo, Ivair ; Liebe, Carl Christian ; Shapiro, Andrew

Author_Institution

Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Technol., Pasadena, CA, USA

fYear

2011

fDate

5-12 March 2011

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

11

Abstract

Reliability and lifetime of diode lasers is critical to space missions. Rigorous tests were conducted on diode lasers to qualify them to be deployed on the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) mission. This mission includes a metrology system that is based upon 2 laser diodes. This paper discusses the different laser diode failure mechanisms that can arise, as well as laser diode reliability requirements set forth by the NuSTAR space mission. In addition, the space qualification procedures and results on 120 laser diodes from two different vendors will be presented. Also, the results of an accelerated laser lifetime test of 20 laser diodes, along with the flight laser diode selection process will be described in this paper.

Keywords

astronomical telescopes; laser reliability; measurement by laser beam; semiconductor lasers; NuSTAR space mission; Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array mission; flight diode lasers; laser diode failure mechanisms; laser diode reliability; metrology system; Diode lasers; Junctions; Measurement by laser beam; Power lasers; Qualifications; Semiconductor lasers; Testing;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Aerospace Conference, 2011 IEEE

Conference_Location

Big Sky, MT

ISSN

1095-323X

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-7350-2

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/AERO.2011.5747388

Filename

5747388