Free Space Optical Communications will enable space missions to return 10 to 100 times more data with 1% of the antenna area of current state-of-the-art communications systems, while utilizing less mass and power.
Optical Communications is being developed at NASA / JPL for future space missions generating high data-volumes. Laser communications is seen as the technology that will meet these needs for future near-Earth, solar system, and interstellar missions.
The inherent advantage of laser communication over traditional deep space communication systems is its narrower transmitted beam-width, which concentrates a larger fraction of the transmit power onto the ground receiver.
Since the optical signal wavelengths are 3 to 5 orders-of-magnitude shorter than typical RF wavelengths, the theoretical advantage of optical communication is 6 to 10 orders-of-magnitude However, the practically realizable advantage is at least an order-of-magnitude in data rate assuming 10 times reduction in aperture size for the space-borne terminal. Because of its high-bandwidth, low mass and low power-consumption, optical communications enables missions to communicate further into deep space.
The Optical Communications Group (OCG) is part of the Communications Systems and Research Section and the Telecommunications and Science at Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). JPL is managed by the California Institute of Technology; OCG is NASA's premiere Optical Communications research facility.
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Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
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