Fiber Optic Splitter

Time period

Mid 1999 through Early 2001

Project description

The fiber optic splitter is designed for use on the GLAS instrument which is part of the Icesat spacecraft.

The optical desing simply consists of an input fiber optic, a lens to collimate its light, a beam splitter cube to split the light energy 50/50, a focusing lens for each channel, and two output fiber optics.

Isometric view of fiber optic splitter

Isometric view of splitter with two channels cut-away
to see internal components

The design must survive a temperature range of -42C to +46C and a random vibration environment of 14.1GRMS. One version of the design has already been built and qualified to these levels. A second version is in qualification tests as of June, 2001; this version incorporates many of the improvements learned during the assembly and test of the first version and is meant to replace its predecessor on the GLAS instrument.

Challenges and lessons learned

This project was originally required to be desgned and fabricated in a very short period of time. The design was completed in less than a week and hardware was machined in approximately two weeks.