Development of transmission and receiving optical antenna for free space laser communication

A transmission and receiving optical antenna is built-in-house by TASA and Taiwan domestic optical company CALIN. A Cassegrain type telescope is designed and manufactured with primary aperture 80 mm. It could provide the transmitted and received gain about 104 dB, and the obscuration loss about -3.8 dB in the link channel for free space optical laser communication. It could also be integrated in the CubeSat or in the optical communication terminal for small satellite missions. The root-mean-square wave front error for the optical antenna is less than 100 nm. The optical aberrations introduced on-axis WFE loss is estimated about -0.72 dB in the link budget. An eyepiece is designed to locate near the focus of telescope to collimate the output beam with beam size about 3.3~4.7 mm for propagating 50 cm distance in the follow-up communication module system. With the strong supporting domestic electro-optical industry, it is expected to help a lot on the development of the Taiwan space technology.