CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS
Advanced Search
Home > Journals > Opt. Eng. > Volume 55 > Issue 11 > Article
Open Access
13 September 2016 Nanosatellite optical downlink experiment: design, simulation, and prototyping
Emily Clements, Raichelle Aniceto, Derek Barnes, David Caplan, James Clark, Inigo del Portillo, Christian Haughwout, Maxim Khatsenko, Ryan Kingsbury, Myron Lee, Rachel Morgan, Jonathan C. Twichell, Kathleen Riesing, Hyosang Yoon, Caleb Ziegler, Kerri Cahoy
Author Affiliations +
Optical Engineering, Vol. 55, Issue 11, 111610 (September 2016). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.OE.55.11.111610
Abstract
The nanosatellite optical downlink experiment (NODE) implements a free-space optical communications (lasercom) capability on a CubeSat platform that can support low earth orbit (LEO) to ground downlink rates>10  Mbps. A primary goal of NODE is to leverage commercially available technologies to provide a scalable and cost-effective alternative to radio-frequency-based communications. The NODE transmitter uses a 200-mW 1550-nm master-oscillator power-amplifier design using power-efficient M-ary pulse position modulation. To facilitate pointing the 0.12-deg downlink beam, NODE augments spacecraft body pointing with a microelectromechanical fast steering mirror (FSM) and uses an 850-nm uplink beacon to an onboard CCD camera. The 30-cm aperture ground telescope uses an infrared camera and FSM for tracking to an avalanche photodiode detector-based receiver. Here, we describe our approach to transition prototype transmitter and receiver designs to a full end-to-end CubeSat-scale system. This includes link budget refinement, drive electronics miniaturization, packaging reduction, improvements to pointing and attitude estimation, implementation of modulation, coding, and interleaving, and ground station receiver design. We capture trades and technology development needs and outline plans for integrated system ground testing.
CC BY: © The Authors. Published by SPIE under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. Distribution or reproduction of this work in whole or in part requires full attribution of the original publication, including its DOI.
Citation Download Citation
Emily Clements, Raichelle Aniceto, Derek Barnes, David Caplan, James Clark, Inigo del Portillo, Christian Haughwout, Maxim Khatsenko, Ryan Kingsbury, Myron Lee, Rachel Morgan, Jonathan C. Twichell, Kathleen Riesing, Hyosang Yoon, Caleb Ziegler, and Kerri Cahoy "Nanosatellite optical downlink experiment: design, simulation, and prototyping," Optical Engineering 55(11), 111610 (13 September 2016). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.OE.55.11.111610
Published: 13 September 2016
JOURNAL ARTICLE
 18 PAGES
DOWNLOAD PAPER SAVE TO MY LIBRARY
GET CITATION
Lens.org Logo
CITATIONS
Cited by 43 scholarly publications and 2 patents.
Advertisement
Advertisement
KEYWORDS
Transmitters
Prototyping
Receivers
Telescopes
Laser applications
Stars
Optical design
RELATED CONTENT
Subscribe to Digital Library
Receive Erratum Email Alert
Back to Top