200 Gbps TBIRD CubeSat downlink: pre-flight test results

On-orbit demonstration of 200-Gbps laser communication downlink from the TBIRD CubeSat

“…The model uses that time series in conjunction with ARQ protocol parameters and known characteristics of the telecom transceivers used for the TBIRD mission. 23 As seen in the figure, Model 1 has close agreement with received throughput. This shows that the receiver (and the ARQ system) performed as expected for most of the pass, given the power-in-fiber profile that occurred.…”

“…The TBIRD space terminal has been described in detail previously. 23,24 The payload is approximately 3U in volume, weighs less than 3 kg, and consumes 100 W of power when all components are active. The optical subassembly is a bi-static design with separate apertures for downlink transmit and uplink receive.…”

“…22 The space terminal is a payload roughly 3U in volume that was built by MIT Lincoln Laboratory and hosted on a 6U CubeSat bus built by Terran Orbital (formerly known as Tyvak Nano-Satellite). 23,24 The ground terminal is located at NASA/JPL's Optical Communications Telescope Laboratory (OCTL) at Table Mountain Facility near Wrightwood, California. 25 OCTL has a 1-m diameter telescope and adaptive optics system that were augmented by JPL to support the TBIRD system.…”

Computational complexities of image plane algorithms for high contrast imaging in space telescopes

“…(Recent small satellite missions have demonstrated 200 Gbps optical communication. ) 65 By launching multiple redundant processing spacecraft or by replacing co-flying spacecraft in the event of processor failure, the risk tolerance of the co-flying processor can be increased while still maintaining the mission reliability expected of class A telescope missions. The greater risk tolerance may allow the co-flying spacecraft to use non-NPSL level 1 processors that are radiation-tolerant and 10 to 100 times more powerful than current radiation-hardened options (see Table 5).…”

H2020-SPACE-ORIONAS miniaturized optical transceivers and amplifiers for high-speed optical inter-satellite links

“…In this context silicon photonics (SiPh) is of particular interest for the development of OISL transceivers since it allows monolithic integration of optical waveguides, opto-electronics and electronic integrated circuits within a CMOS process. Such transceivers have now reached the stage of pre-flight testing [1]. Moving forward, flavors of SiPh that engage SiGe bipolar transistor technologies to manufacture the transceiver electronic circuitry would be of special interest due to their inherent radiation hardness.…”