The NASA Lunar Laser Communications Demonstration (LLCD) was the first demonstration of high rate bi-directional optical communications from a lunar orbiting spacecraft to Earth. The LLCD terminal was integrated into the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft, arriving at the Moon in October 2013. Following successful communications between the optical space terminal and a multiaperture photon-counting ground terminal at downlink data rates of up to 622 Mbps and uplink data rates of up to 20 Mbps, experiment time was used to demonstrate DisruptionTolerant Networking (DTN) benefits for an optical communications system. The simulation of a lunar relay scenario demonstrated the DTN protocols providing data completeness, multiplexing and de-multiplexing of data between multiple sources and destinations, and automated store and forward operations for the first time over optical links with a spacecraft.
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