Feasibility study on the tracking of geodesic satellites in laser communications demonstration experiment

Junzo Uchida; Yoshinori Arimoto

doi:10.1117/12.430792

20 June 2001 Feasibility study on the tracking of geodesic satellites in laser communications demonstration experiment

Junzo Uchida, Yoshinori Arimoto

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 4272, Free-Space Laser Communication Technologies XIII; (2001) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.430792
Event: Photonics West 2001 - LASE, 2001, San Jose, CA, United States

Abstract

In the first stage of laser communications experiment between the International Space Station (ISS) and several ground stations using onboard laser communications demonstration equipment (LCDE), an experiment to track and point geodesic satellites with corner cube reflectors is planned in order to evaluate the pointing/tracking performance and optical/mechanical misalignments of LCDE. As a visibility analysis of existing geodesic satellites from LCDE, we counted the number of the satellite passes which continue more than five minutes in the year 2004 and found that there are 20 passes for EGS and five passes for TOPEX. In order to detect the sunlight reflected from the satellite body and to start the tracking, we need a sensitive tracking sensor whose sensitivity is better than -95 dBm. This sensitivity will be achieved by using a quadrant photo- detector with a GaAsP photo-cathode and optimizing the sensor field-of-view. To evaluate LCDE's pointing performance, a pulsed laser at 1552 nm wavelength will be transmitted to the geodesic satellite, and the light reflected from the corner cube reflector on the satellite will be received by LCDE. The current power budget shows the signal-to-noise ratio of the detection of the returned laser pulse will be about 5 dB.

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Junzo Uchida and Yoshinori Arimoto "Feasibility study on the tracking of geodesic satellites in laser communications demonstration experiment", Proc. SPIE 4272, Free-Space Laser Communication Technologies XIII, (20 June 2001); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.430792

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