Lewis Roberts, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology; Gary Block, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology; Santos Fregoso, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology; Harrison Herzog, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology; Seth Meeker, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology; Jennifer Roberts, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology; Jonathan Tesch, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology; Tuan Truong, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology; Joshua Rodriguez, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology; Andrew Bechter, University of Notre Dame
Keywords: Adaptive optics, laser communication
Abstract:
The Laser Communication Relay Demonstration is NASA’s multi-year demonstration of laser communication to a geosynchronous satellite. The mission currently has two optical ground stations (OGS), with one in California (OGS1) and one in Hawaii (OGS2). This summer we deployed the optical system for OGS1 to the 1-meter OCTL telescope in Wrightwood CA. The optical system consists of an high order adaptive optics system, the transmit system and a camera for target acquisition. The adaptive optics system is responsible for compensating the downlink beam for atmospheric turbulence and coupling it into the modem’s single mode fiber. It is required to operate at 20 degrees above the horizon and produce Strehl ratios of greater than 70% in both daytime and nighttime. To meet this requirement, the adaptive optics system uses two deformable mirrors with one mirror correcting for low spatial frequencies aberrations with large amplitude and a second deformable mirror correcting for high spatial frequencies aberrations with small amplitude. The system uses a Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor. The transmit system relays four beacon beams and one communication laser to the telescope for propagation to the space terminal. Both the uplink and downlink beams are centered at 1.55 microns. We present an overview of the design of the system, predicted performance predictions and current laboratory performance
Date of Conference: September 11-14, 2018
Track: Adaptive Optics & Imaging