Design and In-Orbit Performance of a 1U 1 Gbit/s Optical Communication Terminal
article
A CubeSat-compatible optical communication terminal (CubeCAT) has been designed, manufactured, and tested in orbit. It achieves 1 Gbit/s data rate in downlink at low biterror- rate (≤10−6), has a 1U volume, 1.0 kg mass and 10.8 W power consumption. It is based on a compact and efficient optical architecture, a low mass and stable mechanical structure, a high performing and robust pointing control strategy and designed to be compliant with the CCSDS O3K standard, with Reed-Solomon 223/255 coding. For launch survival a dedicated enveloping suspension module has been realized. Being launched and onboard the NorSat-TD satellite, the Cube- CAT terminal has established various successful in-orbit communication downlinks. Data from the optical ground stations TNO (The Hague, Netherlands), MeO (Grasse, France) and Izaña (Tenerife, Spain) have been analyzed and verify the CubeCAT design.
Topics
TNO Identifier
1026119
ISSN
1077260X
Source
IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics
Publisher
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.(IEEE)