Development of a transportable laser cooled strontium source for future applications in Space

We presented the first prototype of transportable laser-cooled strontium source. Novel design solutions have been discussed with a final volume, mass and power consumption budget for the atomic-package of 210 liters, 120 kg and 110 W, respectively. Most of the home made components have been assembled and tested. The system is currently under characterization and it is already able to produce a sample of about 10^8 atoms at 1 mK temperature. Next steps will be the integration of this system with a second stage cooling laser and with a transportable clock laser in order to realize a fully transportable optical lattice clock. Technical solutions, methods and know-how developed in this work will be used to built more robust, compact and advanced technology apparatus, with the nal aim to provide specifications for a future space optical lattice clock.