The Aerospace Corporation has chosen Avo Photonics, industry leader in rugged, micro-optic design and production, to develop and provide ongoing packaging services for a semiconductor laser illumination source for use on CubeSat miniaturized spaceborne satellites.
Avo was chosen because of its unique capabilities in rugged space-qualified manufacturing, including precision optical alignment, welding, and environmental sealing, while achieving optical performance to meet The Aerospace Corporation’s tight specifications. The program required Avo to produce a 10 watt continuous wave beam at a wavelength of 795 nanometers within a few degrees of the CubeSat reference axis system. Operating at 30 percent efficiency, the high-powered optical source is designed to run over numerous illumination cycles. To ensure that the components were mission ready, Avo tested the opto- electronic performance of the lasers over the defined qualification limits for temperature, vibration and shock.
With The Aerospace Corporation at the forefront of miniaturized satellite technology, high function electro-optic space missions are being developed on a rapid schedule, from concept to implementation, using CubeSat hosts. Decreases in size and mass allow for lower launch cost while still enabling the use of cutting-edge components to achieve mission success. Larger satellites can take five to 10 years to design, build and fly, while CubeSats can be completed and launched in as few as one to two years, ensuring that the latest breakthrough technology arrives in space with less financial risk.
“Avo’s heritage involves producing lasers for the space environment, so we know how imperative it is to provide only the most stable, robust components and assemblies,” said Dr. Joseph Dallas, president of Avo Photonics. “We have the expertise to balance the challenges imposed by spaceborne instruments with the size, cost and delivery time constraints of The Aerospace Corporation’s CubeSat Programs.”
About The Aerospace Corporation
The Aerospace Corporation provides independent technical and scientific research, development and advisory services to national security space programs since 1960. It operates a federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) for the United States Air Force and the National Reconnaissance Office and supports all national security space programs. It also applies more than 50 years of experience with space systems to projects for civil agencies like NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, commercial companies, universities, and international organizations in the national interest. To find out more about The Aerospace Corporation, visit www.aerospace.org.
About Avo Photonics
Avo is the photonics industry’s trusted source for exclusive, private label photonics design, development, and manufacturing. It produces confidential, client-owned optoelectronic solutions and products for military, aerospace, medical, communications and industrial application. Headquartered in greater Philadelphia with offices in Canada and European distribution, Avo was founded and still guided by laser physicists and engineers who blend critical, photonics-based disciplines into a single source for the conceptualizing, design, testing and producing of precision, rugged, optoelectronic components and assemblies. When the industry thinks Avo, they think Light. Precisely. Avo works with market leaders that demand strict confidentiality and advanced technology that address their rapidly evolving photonics needs.
For more information, email sales@avophotonics.com, visit www.avophotonics.com or call 215.441.0107.