Modulight continues its close cooperation with European Space Agency (ESA) by signing a contract on developing high-brightness pump laser technology for Earth observation. The program is scheduled for 2 years and has a total value of over $1.1M. The project aims at improving brightness and reliability of high-power laser arrays that are generally used for pumping solid-state lasers in industrial and space applications.
The project targets to produce design and engineering models of space qualifiable high-brightness and high-reliability quasi-continuous-wave (QCW) laser arrays with > 200W output power and stackable up to 1kW laser modules.
"We are excited to launch this program which comes as a continuation of our efforts to develop lasers in 800nm bandwidth range for space, defense and industrial markets. We have already supplied space qualified communications lasers to ESA for the SMOS mission in 2004 and worked together with ESA on several laser development programs thereon. This new contract helps us to further exploit our product offering in space application, and also opens interesting new business opportunities in commercial markets where higher brightness and more reliable pump lasers are continuously needed. Modulight is proud to have the opportunity to improve competitiveness of Europe in this strategically important technology area.", says Dr. Petteri Uusimaa, President & CEO of Modulight.