Laser Polarization Detection of Space Garbage Components from James Smith's blog

In the Earth's space orbit, hundreds of millions of space jets spin at high speed, posing a great threat to spacecraft and satellites. At present, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Department of Defense in the use of land-based telescopes and Lidars (Ladars) tracking 17,000 pieces, but the system can only determine the location of the target. The researchers pointed out that the new technology can analyze a piece of wreck by what composition, help to determine its quality, momentum and possible damage caused by.

The technique utilizes a burning laser pointer to detect the polarization effect of the material on light. The researchers say that the polarization pattern of the reflected light of the coating is significantly different from that of the metal aluminum, so identifying the polarizing feature is a reliable way to identify the wreckage of the space.

To test this theory, the researchers designed a polarizer to detect the angle of the reflected light, the laser wavelength of 1064 nm, and Ladars laser similar, and selected six kinds of satellite commonly used materials: white, black paint, aluminum And titanium, as well as two kinds of membrane materials to protect the satellite polyimide and Teflon (polytetrafluoroethylene), with polarizing filters and silicon detectors to detect the polarization of their reflected light. They identify 16 major polarization states and correlate these state features with different materials. The polarization characteristics of each material are very unique, enough to distinguish between the other five.

Pascal believes that other aerospace materials such as protective film, composite antenna, solar cells, circuit boards, etc., the polarization effect may also have their own characteristics. He wanted to use a 3000mw laser pointer polarizer to build a database containing a variety of material polarization characteristics, to the existing land-based Ladars installed on the filter, you can directly detect the space wreck of the polarization state, compared with the characteristics of the database data, you can determine the composition of the wreckage.