NASA NTRS · 20230016705
Presented at AGU 2023
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Jason Mitchell. Space Communications and Navigation Exploration, enabled.. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20230016705
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This paper summarizes recent work in developing space laser communications hardware at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, describing how state-of-the-art fiber optic components provide performance and reliability in emerging lasercom system designs.
The Lunar Laser OCTL Terminal is an auxiliary ground station terminal for the Lunar Laser Communication Demonstration (LLCD). The LLOT optical systems exercise modulation and beam divergence control over six 10-watt fiber-based laser transmitters at 1568 nanometers, which act as beacons for pointing of the space-based terminal. The LLOT design transmits these beams from distinct sub-apertures of the F/76 OCTL telescope at divergences ranging from 110 microrad to 40 microrad. LLOT also uses the same telescope aperture to receive the downlink signal at 1550 nanometers from the spacecraft terminal. Characteristics and control of the beacon lasers, methods of establishing and maintaining beam alignment, beam zoom system design, co-registration of the transmitted beams and the receive field of view, transmit/receive isolation, and downlink signal manipulation and control are discussed.