Optical communication on CubeSats — Enabling the next era in space science

Abstract

CubeSats are excellent platforms to rapidly perform simple space experiments. Several hundreds of CubeSats have already been successfully launched in the past few years and the number of announced launches grows every year. These platforms provide an easy access to space for universities and organizations which otherwise could not afford it. However, these spacecraft still rely on RF communications, where the spectrum is already crowded and cannot support the growing demand for data transmission to the ground. Lasercom holds the promise to be the solution to this problem, with a potential improvement of several orders of magnitude in the transmission capacity, while keeping a low size, weight and power. Between 2016 and 2017, The Keck Institute for Space Studies (KISS), a joint institute of the California Institute of Technology and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, brought together a group of space scientists and lasercom engineers to address the current challenges that this technology faces, in order to enable it to compete with RF and eventually replace it when high-data rate is needed. After two one-week workshops, the working group started developing a report addressing three study cases: low Earth orbit, crosslinks and deep space. This paper presents the main points and conclusions of these KISS workshops.

Miniature Optical Steerable Antenna for Intersatellite Communications Liquid Lens Characterization

“…A key technology that enables the use of laser communication is that which steers the laser beam to the receiver. In space, coarse-pointing is traditionally done with body pointing of the satellite, but adding a fine-pointing capability allows for faster data rates [5]. Most systems use a mechanical fine pointing system to allow the transmitter to precisely steer the beam to the receiver [6].…”

CubeSat Communications: Recent Advances and Future Challenges

“…On the other hand, laser communication have grown in importance, because they provide a large bandwidth, a license-free spectrum, a high data rate, less power, and low mass requirements. A laser communication system was used in Small Optical Transponder (SOTA) mission in 2014, which was able to achieve the data rate of 10 Mbps for the downlink [55]. Lasers were also used in the Aerocube OCSD mission to demonstrate C2G links, providing high data rate and near-zero latency [56].…”

Space Optical Links for Communication Networks

“…This approach would be compatible with a LEO constellation, for example. Connecting this constellation with the GEO satellites through a relay link would extend the high data rates at all orbits and to any kind of satellites, even small LEO satellites like CubeSats [74], which could make use of a LEO constellation to relay the data through the GEO satellite. Traffic demands on small delays could be then routed anyway with a direct link to Earth.…”