The Mount Stromlo Optical Communication Ground Station

Birch, Marcus; Martínez, Noelia; Bennet, Francis; Copeland, Michael; Grosse, Doris

doi:10.1109/icsos53063.2022.9749736

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…The are four ports in the pier for the beam to exit to allow multiple instruments to be set up in the lab and selected by a rotating mirror to a given port. 4,5 The completed facility is shown in figure 2 along with the RC700 telescope installed in the dome. The initial instrumentation will be installed directly onto the RC700 which has two Nasmyth ports and mounting points for piggyback instruments.…”

Section: Anu Quantum Optical Ground Stationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Deep space communication with the ANU optical communications ground station

Copeland,

Bennet,

Birch

et al. 2024

Free-Space Laser Communications XXXVI

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The Australian Nation University (ANU) Quantum Optical Ground Station (QOGS) has been constructed in Canberra, Australia. Instrumentation is under development to enable lunar communications with QOGS. A receiver system and beacon transmitter will be installed on the telescope that is compatible with the Optical to Orion (O2O) terminal that will be onboard the Artemis II mission. Communication with spacecraft beyond the Moon is also possible by moving the receiver hardware to a larger telescope. The ANU operates Siding Spring Observatory where a 3.9 m or 2.3 m telescope could be used for deep space communications.

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Section: Anu Quantum Optical Ground Stationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Deep space communication with the ANU optical communications ground station

Copeland,

Bennet,

Birch

et al. 2024

Free-Space Laser Communications XXXVI

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“…This allows for multiple experiments to be setup simultaneously and selected by rotating the final coudé mirror to a given port. 4,5 The Ritchey-Chrétien design of the RC700 has a small central obscuration at around 30% and no corrector optics, which maximises throughput through the telescope and is ideal for photon staved applications such as lunar communications. The small secondary mirror does reduce the field of view (FOV) compared to telescopes such as the Corrected Dall-Kirkham CDK700 sold by Planewave.…”

Section: Anu Optical Communications Ground Stationmentioning

confidence: 99%

A transmitter and receiver for lunar communications on the ANU Optical Ground Station

Copeland

Bennet

Birch

et al. 2023

Free-Space Laser Communications XXXV

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The Australian National University (ANU) Optical Communications Ground Station (OCGS) is currently under development at Mt. Stromlo Observatory in Canberra, Australia. The OCGS will be compatible with a range of wavelengths, coding schemes, and techniques to cover satellites in Low Earth Orbit to Lunar and deep-space, and provide a platform for quantum communication from satellites. We have conducted a feasibility study and preliminary design review for the development of an instrument to support the CCSDS high photon efficiency (HPE) standard so the OCGS can support future lunar missions featuring optical communication terminals. The development of lunar communication capabilities in Australia offers site diversity and increased visibility, allowing for improved optical link availability during missions.We present the preliminary design for the transmitter and receiver which will integrate on the 70 cm telescope in the OCGS. A lab prototype of the transmitter has been built to demonstrate the generation of a pulse position modulation (PPM) waveform which is compatible with the CCSDS high photon efficiency (HPE) standard. The transmitter is made up of four 15 cm apertures which is mounted by a piggyback to the telescope. Each can operate as an independent channel with fine steering control through a fast steering mirror. The apertures are separated by characteristic atmospheric turbulence length r 0 to minimise fading at the spacecraft.The receiver is installed at the Nasmyth port of the 70 cm telescope. The receiver features a fast steering mirror to maximise coupling into a multimode fibre. The signal is split with a photonic lantern and sent to several superconducting nanowire single photon detectors (SNSPD).

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“…The Australian National University (ANU) is currently building an optical ground station for bidirectional laser communications (classical and quantum). 3 The ANU Ground Station will be located at Mount Stromlo Observatory, Canberra. It will be a two level building with the 0.7m Ritchey-Chrétien telescope by PlaneWave Instruments (RC700) and Adaptive Optics capability for space to ground optical communications (Figure 2).…”

Section: The Australian National University Ground Stationmentioning

confidence: 99%

AO-enhanced quantum communications with the ANU Optical Ground Station

Martínez

Kish

Bennet

et al. 2023

International Conference on Space Optics — ICSO 2022

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Satellites have the potential to support quantum communication over much longer distances than fibre optics networks and, as a result, there is a large amount of investment globally in quantum communication satellites. The Australian National University Optical Ground Station aims to provide ground services support for quantum communication satellites, and enhance the quantum link performance by the use of Adaptive Optics techniques.Numerical simulations have been carried out to assess the advantage of correcting the atmospheric turbulence on quantum downlinks with Adaptive Optics. Fibre coupling efficiency of the communications light onto a single mode fibre has been chosen as the performance metric.We pay special attention to the focusing optics and optimise them for the Single Mode Fibre coupling. We present the minimum requirements for an AO system to produce a significant improvement on the quantum link using off-the-shelf components. This paper gathers the main outcomes of the end-to-end numerical simulation and describes a potential pathway for future atmospheric corrected quantum communications.

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The Mount Stromlo Optical Communication Ground Station

Cited by 6 publications

References 8 publications

Deep space communication with the ANU optical communications ground station

Deep space communication with the ANU optical communications ground station

A transmitter and receiver for lunar communications on the ANU Optical Ground Station

AO-enhanced quantum communications with the ANU Optical Ground Station

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