Effects of space environments on space laser system for spacecraft

Laser technology and laser system has more and more important implication in spacecraft engineering. But different from ground environments, space laser system will encounter space environments include vacuum, extreme temperature and thermal cycling, vibration, space radiation environments such as electron, proton, heavy ions, ultraviolet, contamination, and so on. These space environments may have damage or threaten to the space laser system, especially to their optical devices. In this paper, space environments and effects are introduced firstly, and then the influence of space environments such as vacuum, temperature, energetic particles, contamination and vibration on space laser system are analyzed. At last, some advices are proposed to improve the reliability of space laser system are given.