In-flight performance of the Mercury Laser Altimeter laser transmitter | Zendy

Anthony W. Yu | Zendy; Xiaoli Sun | Zendy; Steven X. Li | Zendy; John F. Cavanaugh | Zendy; G. A. Neumann | Zendy

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In-flight performance of the Mercury Laser Altimeter laser transmitter

Author(s) -

Anthony W. Yu,

Xiaoli Sun,

Steven X. Li,

John F. Cavanaugh,

G. A. Neumann

Publication year - 2014

Publication title -

proceedings of spie, the international society for optical engineering/proceedings of spie

Language(s) - English

Resource type - Conference proceedings

SCImago Journal Rank - 0.192

H-Index - 176

eISSN - 1996-756X

pISSN - 0277-786X

DOI - 10.1117/12.2041452

Subject(s) - laser , transmitter , altimeter , mercury (programming language) , remote sensing , spacecraft , telemetry , photodiode , free space optical communication , optics , environmental science , physics , aerospace engineering , computer science , geology , telecommunications , engineering , channel (broadcasting) , programming language

The Mercury Laser Altimeter (MLA) is one of the payload instruments on the MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft, which was launched on August 3, 2004. MLA maps Mercury’s shape and topographic landforms and other surface characteristics using a diode-pumped solid-state laser transmitter and a silicon avalanche photodiode receiver that measures the round-trip time of individual laser pulses. The laser transmitter has been operating nominally during planetary flyby measurements and in orbit about Mercury since March 2011. In this paper, we review the MLA laser transmitter telemetry data and evaluate the performance of solid-state lasers under extended operation in a space environment.

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