Abstract: The recent progress in the authors experimental investigation on air-breathing mode of laser propulsion are reported. With a high power TEA-CO₂ pulsed laser, both horizontal and vertical propulsion experiments are conducted. The energy of each pulse is about 18.58J. The frequency can be adjusted from 20 to 180Hz. Several parabolic reflectors of aluminum alloy with different focuses f are used in the experiments. A high speed CCD camera is applied to record the movement variables of the reflectors. For single pulse experiments, the measured momentum coupling coefficients C_m are 27.7dyne·s/J for f=10mm and 22.82dyne·s/J for f=15mm. For multi-pulse experiments (frequency 50Hz, work time 0.5s), the horizontal propulsion distance is greater than 1.5m, and the vertical propulsion height exceeds 1m.

Key words: aeroastro-propulsion system, laser propulsion, TEA-CO₂ pulsed laser, air-breathing mode, momentum coupling coefficient