OSE Seminar by Dr. Lauren Schatz On-Sky Testing of the World’s Most Powerful 75 W Sodium Beacon
Departmental News
Posted: October 13, 2025
Date: Thursday, October 16, 2025
Time: 12:30 PM to 1:45 PM
Location: PAIS, Room 2540 and Zoom
Speaker:Dr. Lauren Schatz
Starfire Optical Range, Directed Energy Directorate, Air Force Research
Laboratory, Kirtland Air Force Base, NM 87117–5776.
Abstract:
Starfire Optical Range (SOR), located at Kirtland AFB, NM, has pioneered research in adaptive optics (AO) since the 1980s for Space Situational Awareness (SSA) detecting, tracking, and characterizing satellites. Adaptive optics systems correct for the blurring causes by Earth’s turbulent atmosphere. Nearly every large observatory uses an adaptive optics system and AO was the key enabling technology for Dr. Andrea Ghez’s 2020 Nobel prize in physics for the discovery of a blackhole at the center of our galaxy. The SOR revolutionized the field of astronomical adaptive optics by developing and demonstrating the world’s first laser beacon system which allows for AO high-resolution imaging over almost all of the night sky. At SOR we are currently testing a prototype 75W sodium laser beacon which is the brightest and most powerful laser beacon in the world! Come and learn about the cutting-edge research in adaptive optics and laser beacons happening in your own backyard!
Biography:
Dr. Lauren Schatz is a research physicist at Starfire Optical Range, Air Force Research Lab. Dr. Schatz is the principal investigator (PI) of three research projects and is a leader of an international collaboration of researchers from five different countries. She earned her Ph.D. in Optical Science in 2021 and her Masters in Optical Science in 2020 at the Wyant College of Optical Sciences, University of Arizona. She obtained her Bachelor of Science in Physics at the University of California Santa Cruz in 2015. Dr. Schatz has published two academic papers on her Ph.D. thesis work, one of which was featured on the cover of the Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments and Systems (JATIS). Her career goal is to research and develop instruments that advance our understanding of the universe. At the Air Force Research Lab Dr. Schatz is currently researching advances in laser beacon adaptive optics technology to correct for the blurring effect of Earth’s atmosphere. Adaptive optics allows for crisp images of stars, asteroids, and planets in other star systems. At Starfire Optical Range her work advances U.S. capabilities in Space Situational Awareness (SSA) which is the detection, characterization, and tracking of near-Earth objects. Dr. Schatz was the first awardee of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) Protostar Award for excellent new principal investigators. She is the 2025 winner of the Air Force Materiel Command’s Jr. Scientist Award, and a 2025 recipient of the Air Force Research Lab’s Early Career Award.
