Jason S Stewart

US Patent:

20160204866, Jul 14, 2016

Filed:

Jan 8, 2016

Appl. No.:

14/991386

Inventors:

Don M. BOROSON - Needham MA, US
Bryan S. ROBINSON - Arlington MA, US
Daniel V. MURPHY - Concord MA, US
Jason STEWART - Stow MA, US
Farzana I. KHATRI - Lexington MA, US
Steven CONSTANTINE - Westford MA, US
David Jason GEISLER - Watertown MA, US
Timothy M. YARNALL - Amherst NH, US
Zachary DARLING - Somerville MA, US

International Classification:

H04B 10/29
H04B 10/61
H04J 14/02

Abstract:

Challenges of direct-to-Earth (DTE) laser communications (lasercom) between spacecraft in low-Earth orbit (LEO) or medium-Earth orbit (MEO) and ground terminals can include short duration transmission windows, long time gaps between the transmission windows, deleterious effects of atmospheric turbulence, and the inability to operate in cloudy weather. Direct-link optical communications systems described herein can have data rates that are high enough to empty high-capacity on-board buffer(s) (e.g., having a capacity of at least about 1 Tb to hundreds of Tb) of a spacecraft in a single pass lasting only tens of seconds to a few minutes (e.g., 1-15 minutes), and overprovisioning the buffer capacity accounts for variations in the latency between links, One or more distributed networks of compact optical ground terminals, connected via. terrestrial data networks, receive and demodulate WDM optical data transmissions from a plurality of orbiting spacecraft (e.g., satellites).