Operational laser systems used on the MADOS project

The present work describes some experiments using operational laser ranging systems and involving the use of 24-inch, 30-inch, and 48-inch telescopes, laser beacons, balloon-borne lasers, and mobile argon-laser ranging systems. One experiment tested the feasibility of using laser beacons as terrestrial artificial stars for visual navigation and manned spacecraft control as well as for tracking reference for scientific instruments. Another experiment simulated a space-to-earth laser data transmission link by directing a balloon-borne laser transmitter from an altitude well above all significant turbulence to an instrumented ground receiving station in order to measure scintillation statistics as a function of receiver aperture and to compare statistics of laser scintillation to available data on stellar scintillation. Orbital techniques, test comparison methods, and major collocation tests are described.