1.06 μm wavelength based high accuracy satellite laser ranging and space debris detection

Classical satellite laser ranging (SLR) technology based on 532 nm wavelength usually adopts low energy laser to measure cooperative objects. However, for a very weak target, such as debris and lunar reflector arrays, laser ranging system should have much stronger detection capability than the laser ranging system for traditional application. A common way to improve system detection capability is to use high energy laser. With an additional frequency doubling crystal, it is more difficult to make a high energy laser based on 532 nm than that based on 1.06 μm, which restricts the improvement of system detection capability, and also gives rise to the short lifetime, poor system stability problems. Compared with 532 nm laser, the 1.06 μm laser has many advantages of high laser energy and power, high atmospheric transmissivity, and low background noise, thereby making it an ideal substitution for the traditional 532 nm SLR system. In this paper, we comparatively analyze the above-mentiond advantages of the 1.06 μm laser and other system’s key parameters such as detector efficiency and target reflection efficiency, calculate the echo photons one can obtain, and establish a 1.06 μm laser ranging system based on the existing 532 nm SLR at Shanghai Astronomical Observatory. Owing to the using of an InGaAs single photon detector, the system turns very compact, low cost, easy-to-be-installed and has almost no additional operation complexity than the 532 nm system. With this system, the high precision 1.06 μm laser ranging for cooperative objects based on InGaAs detector is carried out for the first time in China, and a ranging for space debris 1500 km away can also be realized. The ranging experiment shows with the same laser, SLR using 1.06 μm output reaches a detection efficiency of 7 times the detection efficiency the SLR using 532 nm output reaches, and the background noise only 1/5. This approves the advantages and feasibility of 1.06 μm system, and also shows its great potential application prospects in the high precision weak target laser detection in the day and night time. This paper provides a very easy operation, high compact and low cost method for the future high precision weak target laser ranging.