Solar-Pumped and Radiation-Balanced Lasing Scheme for an Outer Space Environment

We explore an innovative approach to a space-based laser system which uses solar irradiance to directly produce laser light as opposed to using conventional solar power generation to power an onboard laser. The efficiency of such a system can lead to cost and weight improvements to constellation satellite systems and basic probes. For our analysis, we build up the lasing dynamics ion dopants of a gain medium with an open quantum systems formalism.