MANUFACTURERS OF CUSTOM, HIGH PRECISION INSTRUMENTATION AND SUPPORT EQUIPMENT
Projects
- Lidar and Directed Energy Components
- Complete Lidar/Active Instruments
- Raman Airborne Spectroscopic Lidar (RASL)
- LVIS
- Micro-Pulse Lidar
- THOR Lidar
- Phasers - Prototype Holographic Atmospheric Scanner for Environmental Remote Sensing
- HARLIE (Holographic Airborne Rotating Lidar Instrument Experiment) Hemisphere Scanning Stage
- High Spectral Resolution Lidar (HSRL)
- GOLD
- 2-micron CO2 Lidar
- DAWN AIR1
- Support Equipment
- Aircraft Installations
- ER-2 Doppler Radar Data System Enclosure
- Cloud Radar System Data System Enclosure
- King Air Rear Cargo Area Riser plate and electronics racks
- King Air 4-bay electronics rack with shock isolation
- RSP Instrument installation in King Air
- HSRL instrument installation
- 400mm aperture window port for King Air HSRL-247-X
- Raman Airborne Spectroscopic Lidar (RASL)
- RASL segmented window and external heat exchanger
- LVIS installation in King Air
- MASTER installation in King Air
- HiWRAP in WB-57
- Complete Passive Optical Instruments
- RF Instruments
- Single Point Diamond Turning
- Space-based Instruments
Fiber Optic Splitter
Isometric view of 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.
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.