Small Spacecraft Community of Practice
Subscribe to receive announcements for the Small Spacecraft Systems Virtual Institute’s (S3VI) monthly webinar series and quarterly newsletter here. We look forward to your participation!
DLR’s solutions for Optical Communication on CubeSats
Speaker: Benjamin Roediger, Department of Optical Satellite Links, German Aerospace Center (DLR)
Wednesday, September 13, 2023
10:00AM-11:00AM Pacific Daylight Time
Click here to download the presentation slides.
Please contact Julianna.L.Fishman@nasa.gov if you experience issues with the audiovisual connection to this webinar.
Abstract: Free Space Optical communication (FSO) overcomes the challenges of traditional RF-communication in space. With its high data-rates, robustness against electromagnetic influences and being free from organizational regulations, FSO provides solutions for high-rated Direct to Earth (DTE) and Intersatellite (ISL) communication.
With the raising CubeSat market and the increasing number of satellite constellations, the request for compact and efficient designs increases as well. Thus, German Aerospace Center (DLR) developed the world’s smallest laser communication terminal for CubeSats (OSIRIS4CubeSat, O4C). O4C is flying on the CubeL satellite in the PIXL-1 mission. The payload itself has a modular design which allows to transfer the technology into other fields of satellite communication. The basic payload can be adapted and/or extended by different subsystems to provide solutions for intersatellite communication or Quantum Key Distribution (QKD).
This talk gives an overview of the basic development O4C, as well as the first iterations QUBE as a precursor towards QKD and CubeISL to transfer the technology from DTE to ISL.
Beside the space terminals the presentation will give a brief overview of DLR’s solutions towards interoperability for laser communication. This includes ground-based solutions to provide worldwide services and standardization of the communication protocols. Thus, DLR leads the group of standardizing the Optical On-Off keying (O3K) standard at the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS).
S3VI encourages the community to submit questions before the webinar to enable more directed responses. Please send questions to craig.d.burkhard@nasa.gov.
