NASA’s New Deep Space Laser Communication 40 Times Bandwidth of Radio Communications

In late 2023, NASA tested a new hybrid laser/radio antenna to downlink data from 20 million miles (32 million kilometers) away at a rate of 15.63 megabits per second – about 40 times faster than radio frequency communications at that distance. On Jan. 1, 2024, the antenna downlinked a team photograph that had been uploaded …

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A Feasible and Affordable Interstellar Mission Capability is Coming Together

Chairman of the Breakthrough Prize Foundation and Chairman of Breakthrough Initiatives, Dr. Pete Worden, discusses the Breakthrough Starshot work on the laser propelled solar sail to Proxima Centauri. Billionaire Yuri Milner committed $100 million for Breakthrough Starshot. They probably had about $10 million worth of contracts around the world to answer these three questions. 1. …

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Tiled Titanium Sapphire Laser Amplification to Go Beyond the 10 Petawatt Limit to 40 PW or More

Coherently tiled titanium:sapphire laser amplification provides a relatively easy and inexpensive way to surpass the current 10-petawatt limit. “By adding a 2×2 coherently tiled titanium:sapphire high-energy laser amplifier in China’s SULF or EU’s ELI-NP, the current 10-petawatt can be further increased to 40-petawatt and the focused peak intensity can be increased by nearly 10 times …

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High-Performance Ultrafast Lasers That Fit on a Fingertip

New high-performance ultrafast lasers are being made on nanophotonic chips. The new work centers on miniaturizing mode-lock lasers — a unique laser that emits a train of ultrashort, coherent light pulses in femtosecond intervals, which is an astonishing quadrillionth of a second. Ultrafast mode-locked lasers are indispensable to unlocking the secrets of the fastest timescales …

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A Few Watts of Continuous Terahertz Lasers Can Enable Room-temperature Superconductors

Diamond anvils can make superconductors at or near room temperature in the lab. Now a path to useful room-temperature superconductors has been briefly shown using 10 THz lasers. A few watts of Continuous 10 Thz lasers hitting K3C60 (a fullerene), can make the material behave as a room temperature superconductor. What still must be done …

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Ten Times Faster Solar System Exploration With Laser Accelerated Micro Pellets

A near term laser ablation of micropellets can be made to rapidly accelerate one ton space probes to reach Pluto in one year. The NASA New Horizons launched in 2006 took 9.5 years to reach Pluto and weighed a little less half of a ton. A ten megawatt laser system in geosynchronous could accelerate a …

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Going to the Next Level for Space With Microwave and Laser Propelled Rockets

Kevin Parkin, an accomplished physicist and visionary engineer, is the driving force behind Parkin Research, a cutting-edge space technology company that is relentlessly pioneering tomorrow’s technologies to unlock the boundless potential of space exploration. Parkin has AI-based design tools that can provide detailed point optimized point designs based upon cost and other constraints. Directed energy …

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Lockheed Will Make Two to Four 300 Kilowatt Class Lasers for the US Army

Lockheed Martin has a US Army contract to develop and deliver up to four 300 kW-class laser weapon systems to the Indirect Fire Protection Capability-High Energy Laser (IFPC-HEL) prototype program. The IFPC-HEL system complements other layered defense components to protect soldiers from stressing threats, unmanned aerial systems, rocket, artillery and mortars, along with rotary and …

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DARPA Developing Power Beaming to Enable Energy Web Dominance

DARPA selected RTX Corporation, Draper, and BEAM Co to design prototype lop wireless optical power relays. The Persistent Optical Wireless Energy Relay (POWER) program, aimed at revolutionizing energy distribution through airborne wireless power transfer. The optical energy relays designed in POWER’s phase one will be demonstrated on the ground. In the second phase, they will …

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