Published By National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Issued over 9 years ago
Summary
Description
<p>Develop key technologies that enable&nbsp;<u>operational</u> deep space optical communications.</p><ul><li>Spacecraft disturbance isolation platform for sub-microradian pointing with half the mass and power of present technology</li><li>Photon counting space receiver to increase sensitivity 10X and uplink from 100 &nbsp;b/s to multi-MB/s</li><li>Ground receiver detector array suitable for multi-meter Earth optical receiver antenna to shift burden from space to groudn for 2X improvement in downlink data rate with no increase in spacecraft burdern</li><li>Advance readiness level of above technologies integrated to lightweight SiC optics, deep-space laser transmitter&nbsp; and electronics</li></ul>