Fibertek has developed a ground based high-power (7 kW) optical communication uplink laser to support NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s (JPL) Deep Space Optical Communication (DSOC) program. The uplink laser assembly (ULA) provides a beacon laser and Binary PPM (BPPM) modulation signaling to the DSOC spacecraft terminal. Laser beacons with scalable power (multi-kW) are needed for Earth-to-asteroid, inter-planetary (Mars), and deep-space optical communication uplinks. This paper describes the ULA design, development, and performance verification testing. A single laser system was delivered in 2020 for performance testing and initial integration with the optical uplink telescope system. The full ULA laser was delivered and installed in NASA JPL’s Optical Communications Telescope Laboratory (OCTL) optical ground station facility in 2021. DSOC will fly on the NASA Psyche asteroid mission in 2022 and demonstrate deep space laser communications to earth. The ULA is an automated system with a comprehensive user interface that commands and controls ten (10) individual pulsed Yb fiber lasers. The individual lasers are incoherently combined and propagated to the Psyche satellite. ULA commands and monitors the performance of each individual laser, provides redundancy for high availability, and provides multiple safety interlocks to safeguard equipment and personnel. Each Yb fiber laser is collimated individually with a beam quality of M2 < 1.2 at 1064 nm in a pulsed PPM format with 2.7 kW of peak power. This paper describes the DSOC requirements and provides performance verification data.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.