Technology Transfer

Software Helps Design Powerful Laser

AN INTERGOVERNMENTAL AGENCY transfer of real-time fallout monitoring software supporting the Space Shuttle program at Kennedy Space Center has contributed to the design of the world's most powerful laser. This could result in reaching implications for future national security, fusion energy and a host of scientific and technological fields.

The Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is using the software as part of the design effort of the National Ignition Facility, a 92-beam, 1.8-megajoule-laser facility, being constructed in Livermore, California. The software essentially allows "virtual" randomly distributed particulate fallout to fall on a large number of virtual sample plates, and then summarizes the results of all of those "measurements."

A Kennedy Space Center software program was transferred to the National Ignition Facility, housing the world's most powerful laser, to monitor laser subassemblies for particle cleanliness. The laser beam structures converge on the circular target chamber (at lower right). Photo credit: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's design of the laser's major subassemblies involved the consideration of the particle cleanliness of the substructures and optics within the laser chain. The computational and modeling work heightened the design team's awareness of the cleanliness issues involved and allowed the consideration of alternative building methodologies to maintain cleanliness during assembly.

As a research tool whose abilities cannot be duplicated anywhere else on Earth, the laser contained in the stadium-sized National Ignition Facility will allow scientists a glimpse into what is equivalent to the center of the Sun. The facility would be the centerpiece of the nation's Inertial Confinement Fusion research community, leading a worldwide effort to understand the challenging field of high-energy density physics and possible fusion energy production.

In response to a need for real-time fallout monitoring technology at Kennedy Space Center, engineers Paul Mogan and Christian Schwindt wrote the Fallout Witness Sample Simulation Program, also known as the Particle Fallout Simulation Program. This software program simulates a facility with user definitions of class, particulate fallout size distribution, witness plate area and exposure time for each run. Repeating the program for several chosen areas and times produces results of simulated fallout measurement. The software is part of a wider program to make predictions of the fallout rates and surface cleanliness of the subassemblies, based on specific assumptions of clean room operations and anticipated assembly tasks.

For more information, contact Lewis Parrish at Kennedy Space Center. Call: 407/867-6373,
E-mail: ParriLM@kscgws00.ksc.nasa.gov Please mention you read about it in Innovation.