KEYWORDS: Space operations, Telescopes, Signal processing, Receivers, Transmitters, Laser safety, Interfaces, Sensors, Deep space optical communications, Actuators
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) payload, launched with the Psyche spacecraft on October 13, 2023, is facilitating an ongoing Technology Demonstration (TD) of Free-Space Optical Communications (FSOC), from beyond the earth-moon system. The DSOC Flight Laser Transceiver (FLT), can acquire a 1064 nm uplink laser from earth, and return a 1550 nm, Serially Concatenated Pulse Position Modulated (SCPPM) signal, to earth. The FLT uses a 22 cm diameter unobscured optical transceiver assembly, coupled to a 4 W average power laser transmitter, supplemented with actuators, sensors, electronics and software. A 5-7 kW average power, multi-beam 1064 nm uplink laser assembly integrated to the Optical Communications Telescope Laboratory (OCTL) near Wrightwood, CA serves as the Ground Laser Transmitter (GLT). The DSOC Ground Laser Receiver (GLR) at the Palomar Observatory, Hale telescope (operated by Caltech Optical Observatories), consists of a Superconducting Nanowire Single Photon Detector (SNSPD) array, connected to a ground signal processing assembly. Signal photon arrivals are detected and processed to extract information codewords at the GLR. A Mission Operations System (MOS) co-located with the Psyche Project Mission Operations Center, at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), coordinates DSOC technology demonstration activities. This paper presents a system overview, mission description and operations architecture for the TD. Early results that include downlink at maximum downlink data-rate of 267 Mb/s from 0.37 Astronomical Units (AU) or 55 million kilometers are presented.
The Deep Space Optical Communication (DSOC) project will conduct its technology demonstration concurrently with NASA’s Psyche mission, which hosts the DSOC flight transceiver (FLT) on its spacecraft. The DSOC Ground Laser Receiver (GLR) has been developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and installed at the Palomar Observatory 5m Hale telescope in order to receive the optical downlink signal from the FLT, and is capable of processing discrete downlink data rates from 56 kbps to 265 Mbps over the course of the mission spanning an approximate range of 0.06 to 2.7 AU. In this paper we review the architecture of the completed GLR and its subsystems: (i) the GLR Optics Assembly (GLROA) that acquires the downlink signal and couples it to (ii) the GLR Detector Assembly (GDA) that features a superconducting nanowire single photon counting detector (SNSPD) array, (iii) the GLR Signal Processing Assembly (GSPA) that demodulates and decodes the pulse-position-modulated downlink waveform, and (iv) the GLR Monitor and Control software that is used to interface with the Hale telescope and operate the entire system. We discuss GLR operations in response to planned DSOC downlink activities, and present key results from end-to-end performance tests conducted with FLT hardware, as well as operational readiness test results that demonstrate Ground Laser Receiver station readiness to meet DSOC objectives.
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