Operations at the JPL OCTL Telescope

Wilson, Keith E.; Kovalik, Joseph M.; Biswas, Abhijit; Roberts, William T.

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NASA NTRS · 20090019032

Operations at the JPL OCTL Telescope

Wilson, Keith E.·Kovalik, Joseph M.·Biswas, Abhijit·Roberts, William T.

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Abstract

The JPL Optical Communications Telescope Laboratory (OCTL) is a 200 sq-m located at 2.2.km altitude in Wrightwood California and houses a state-of-the-art 1-m telescope. The OCTL team is involved in the development of operational strategies for ground-to-space laser beam propagation for future NASA optical communications missions. Strategies include safe beam propagation through navigable air space, line of sight optical attenuation monitoring, adaptive optics, and multi-beam scintillation mitigation. This paper presents the results of recent operations at the OCTL facility including telescope characterization data and laser beam propagation experiments to Earth-orbiting retro-reflecting satellites; experiments that validate the telescope's tracking and blind-pointing performance and safe laser beam transmission procedures for propagating through navigable airspace.

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optical communications safe laser beam propagation lasers uplink scintillation mitigation

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BibTeX RIS

Wilson, Keith E., Kovalik, Joseph M., Biswas, Abhijit, Roberts, William T.. 2007-05-16. Operations at the JPL OCTL Telescope. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20090019032

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