Status and progress of pulsed laser ablation propulsion technology in the field of aerospace
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摘要: 脉冲激光烧蚀推进技术具有比冲高和推力可精确控制的特点,既可用于发射有效载荷也可用于星载动力,甚至可用小行星表面物质作为推进剂使其偏转轨道,因此,在航天领域得到越来越多关注。围绕激光单级入轨发射、同步轨道和火星轨道运输;激光微推力器用于航天器姿轨控,以及激光与电组合推进;激光烧蚀操控cm级空间碎片的轨道,以及激光烧蚀操控较大尺寸碎片的姿态;激光烧蚀偏转小行星轨道等方面,对脉冲激光烧蚀推进技术在航天领域研究现状和进展,进行了系统全面地归纳和总结,并对激光平均功率、波长、脉宽和推进剂选材等关键问题,进行了详细分析。Abstract: Pulsed laser ablation propulsion has the characteristics of high specific impulse and precise and controllable thrust. It can be used not only for launching payload, but also for satellite drive, even for deflecting the orbit of asteroid, whose surface material would be ablated as propellant. Therefore, pulsed laser ablation propulsion has attracted more and more attention in the aerospace field. Focusing on laser launch vehicle of single stage to orbit, transmission to geosynchronous orbit and Mars orbit; laser plasma thrusters for the attitude and orbit control of spacecraft, laser-electric hybrid acceleration systems; laser ablation for orbit manipulation of centimeter scale space debris and attitude manipulation of larger space debris; laser ablation for deflecting the orbit of asteroid, this paper systematically and comprehensively summarizes the research status and progress of pulsed laser ablation propulsion technology in the field of aerospace, and analyzes in detail the key problems such as the average power, wavelength, pulse width of laser and the selection of propellant.
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表 1 推进剂材料和冲量耦合系数
Table 1. Propellant material and coupling coefficient
pulse width/fs coupling coefficient/(N·MW−1) energy fluence/(kJ·m−2) Al POM Al POM 400 30±5 125±12 50±10 32±6 80 28±5 773±70 30±6 40±8 表 2 激光和靶材参数
Table 2. Laser and target parameters
launch
orbittype wavelength/nm pulse
duration/pspulse
energy/kJpulse repetition
rate/Hzlaser average
power/MWmirror
diameter/mcoupling coefficient/
(N/MW)single stage to orbit Nd:YAG 1057 100 5 1000~3000 5~15 6 100~150 from LEO into Mars orbit Nd:YAG 355 100 5 250 1.25 3 70 -
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