Deep space science downlinks via optical communication

Author

Daddato, Robert J. ; Schulz, Klaus-Jürgen ; Zayer, Igor

Author_Institution

HSO-GS, Eur. Space Agency, Darmstadt, Germany

fYear

2011

fDate

11-13 May 2011

Firstpage

8

Lastpage

13

Abstract

By the year 2025 the European Space Agency plans to be operating a number of currently studied or planned scientific missions which will place satellites in orbits around the Moon, the Earth-Sun Lagrange points, and Mars and Jupiter. Initial studies are underway to determine the feasibility of providing optical communications systems for dedicated science data channels with the objective to improve upon the present workhorse radio frequency link bandwidths by an order of magnitude within similar mass, power, and size limitations. The target is to provide 100 Mbps channel bandwidth from a distance of 1 AU with a global communication link availability of >; 95%.

Keywords

optical communication; Earth-Sun Lagrange points; European Space Agency; Jupiter; Mars; Moon; deep space science downlinks; optical communications systems; radio frequency link bandwidths; science data channels; scientific missions; Adaptive optics; Downlink; Earth; Optical fiber communication; Phase shift keying; Radio frequency; Space missions; deep space communications; laser communications; optical communications;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Space Optical Systems and Applications (ICSOS), 2011 International Conference on

Conference_Location

Santa Monica, CA

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-9686-0

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICSOS.2011.5783718

Filename

5783718