K.S.

School of Engineering and Management

ECE Department

Technical presentation on
Deep Space Optical Terminals

Parvathy R 1KG15EC056
What is Deep-Space Optical Communication

Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) is a laser space communication

system meant to improve communications performance 10 to 100 times over the
current radio frequency technology without incurring increases in mass, volume or
power.
Why Deep-space Optical Communication

• The data rate can be increased to 10 times of the RF system which was being
used
• The mass, volume and power consumed will remain the same.
• Attenuation is reduced when compared to RF
How does Deep space Optical communication take place

Deep Space Optical communication takes

place with the help of three terminals
called Deep Space Optical Terminals (DOT) :
1.Flight Laser Transceiver (FLT)
2.Ground Laser Transmitter (GLT)
3.Ground Laser Receiver (GLR)

There is also a DOT Mission Operation center (MOC) which has resources to
monitor, command and communicate with the spacecraft.
Steps in which communication is established between the spacecraft and the
ground terminals:

1. The spacecraft has the FLT DOT subsystem mounted on it.

2. The GLT sends an uplink beam to the spacecraft. This beam is used as pointing
reference at the spacecraft as well as carry uplink communication data.
3. The FLT receives the uplink beam and transmits a downlink beam.
4. The GLR receives the downlink light and recovers the communication data
Flight Laser Transceiver (FLT)
FLT is the space-based subsystem of the Deep-space Optical Terminals (DOT)
The FLT has three major assemblies in it :
1. Optical Assembly : It has a transmit and receive telescope sub-assembly, AFT
optics , various sensors and a mirror assembly.
2. Vibration Reduction Assembly : This assembly attenuates the effect of host
spacecraft angular disturbances on the optical assembly by using active or
passive isolators which are controlled by a processor.
3. Opto-electronic assembly : This assembly consists of the laser transmitter,
processors, power converters and modems.
An umbilical cord made up soft copper wires and fiber optic cables connects the
opto-electronic assembly to the optical assembly without interfering with the
vibration reduction assembly
The reference architecture of the major assemblies present in FLT
FLT concept design :
Ground Laser Receiver (GLR)

GLT sends an uplink to the spacecraft for pointing and also uplink communication

Key features that a GLR must have :

1. High gain antenna obtained from large collecting area
2. It should be able to operate at day time
3. Operation in photon-starved region due to reception of extremely faint signal
from deep-space.
Architecture of GLR assembly :
The GLR has six assemblies :
1. The telescope assembly collects and concentrates the downlink coming from
the FLT.

2. The AFT optic assembly takes the light from the telescope assembly and filters
out the background light.

3. The downlink light is coupled to the detector assembly, where the photons are
converted into an electronic signal.

4. The electronic signals from the detector assembly are sent to the element
electronics, which synchronizes to the downlink signalling format and estimates
the signal and background photo-count rate. It provides the control signals to the
telescope assembly and AFT optics assembly, which are used to acquire and track
the downlink light.
5. The station electronics decodes the information that was transmitted over the
downlink; it then stores the resulting data for eventual relay back to DOT MOC.

6. The station electronics also relays back to the DOT MOC the atmospheric
conditions that affect the link, such as sky radiance, atmospheric attenuation and
turbulence. These parameters are measured by an atmosphere monitoring
assembly.
Ground Laser Receiver :
Ground Laser Transmitter
The ground-based optical systems consists of Ground Laser Transmitter (GLT)
system, which transmits a beacon to the FLT.
Key requirements of GLT :
1. To deliver a pre-set power density at entrance aperture of the flight terminal in
order to maintain the uplink laser power, to reduce beam divergence and also
mitigate the atmospheric turbulence effects.
2. It should be able to meet the pointing accuracy requirements.
3. Operation during day time.

The Uplink Telescope’s options include: a single telescope, distributed telescopes

and flat mirror beam directors.
The Uplink Laser’s key requirements include:

1. 1030 nm wavelength
2. 2 kW average and 370 kW of peak power
3. pulse repetition rates in the 4 to 500kHz range 128 ns pulse-width
4. 20 dB pulse extinction ratio
Conclusion

Flight and ground terminals were conceptually designed to meet pre-set

requirements. This system enables downlink transmission. This system enables
downlink transmission of over 0.25Gb/s and uplink data rate of 0.2Mb/s from Mars
close distance (0.42 AU) while estimated flight terminal mass and power are
comparable to the state-of-practise of existing Mars spacecraft telecommunication
systems
References
• [1]. A. Biswas, H. Hemmati, S. Piazzolla, B. Moision, K. Birnbaum, and K. Quirk, “Deep-space
Optical Terminals (DOT) Systems Engineering,” JPL’s IPN Progress report 42-183, Nov 15, 2010.
• [2]. J. Hamkins, “Pulse position modulation, “Handbook of Computer Networks,” H. Bidgoli, Ed.
New York Wiley, Ch. 37, 2007.
• [3]. B. Moision and J. Hamkins, “Coded modulation for the deep space optical channel: serially
concatenated PPM,” JPL’s IPN Progress Report, vol. 42-161, 2005.
• [4]. W. Farr, M. Regehr, M. Wright, D. Shelton, A. Sahasrabudhi, J. Gin, and D. Nguyen,
“Overview and trades for the DOT flight laser transmitter,” JPL’s IPN Progress Report, to be
published April 2011. [5]. K. J. Quirk, J. W. Gin, and M. Srinivasan, “Optical PPM
synchronization for photon counting receivers,” MILCOM Conference, IEEE, pp.1-7, Nov. 2008.
[6]. K. Birnbaum, J. Charles, W. Farr, J. Gin, L. Quirk, W. T. Roberts, J. Stern, Y-H. Wu, “DOT
ground laser receiver: overview and major trades,” JPL’s IPN Progress Report, Aug. 15, 2010.
• [7]. R. La Rue, G. Davis, D. Pudvay, K. Costello, and V. Aebi, “Photon Counting 1060 nm Hybrid
Photomultiplier with High Quantum Efficiency,” IEEE Electron Devices Lett. Vol. 20, pp. 1126-
128, 1999.
• [8]. W. T. Roberts and M. Wright, “Deep-space Optical Terminals (DOT) Ground Laser
Transmitter (GLT) trades and conceptual point design,” JPL’s IPN Progress report, 42-183, Nov.
2010.