This is a past event.

Abhijit Biswas from Optical Communications Systems Group-NASA JPL presents "Deep Space Optical Communications"

Abstract:
Optical communications has been pursued since the invention of lasers in the early 1960’s. Recent demands on bandwidth for disseminating information worldwide has spurred this field, with advances extending beyond terrestrial applications to airborne and satellite communications. At the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology (JPL/Caltech), the use of laser communications to service NASA’s deep space missions has been an ongoing pursuit and will be the subject of this talk. Deep space optical communications (DSOC) is motivated by information capacity demands from higher resolution science instruments and future human exploration of planetary destinations, such as, Mars and beyond. Limited spectrum allocation in the radio frequency bands that have provided robust service to date, makes this need urgent. In order to communicate with lasers from deep space high photon-efficiency is mandated so that greater than 1bit/photon of information can be returned from distance space destinations. Technical challenges posed by deep space optical communications are being addressed through technology development for flight and ground elements, along with incremental end-to-end link demonstrations. A broad overview of these developments with an emphasis on recent and future link demonstrations will be presented in this talk.