Initial results from NASA’s low-cost optical terminal (LCOT) at Goddard Space Flight Center
We present the initial results from testing of the Low-Cost Optical Terminal (LCOT) at NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). LCOT is designed to be a single modular design that can be quickly reconfigured to support different laser communication missions. LCOT is built around a 70 cm commercially available telescope designed with optical and quantum communications in mind. We have installed a state-of-the-art adaptive optics system, novel high-power laser amplifiers, and other innovative subsystems developed by our team to facilitate laser communications. We have conducted tests of our LCOT system against operational space terminals, demonstrating our ability to receive a downlink and transmit an uplink. We show the results of these tests and give an analysis of the results.
Authors
- John V. Speer
- Haleh Safavi
- Victoria C. Wu
- Armen Caroglanian
- Kevin J. Phillips
- Howard Garon
- Sassan n. yerushalmi
- Kristoffer C. Olsen
- Daniel A. Paulson (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2296-7269)
- Predrag Sékulic
- Robert E Hall
- Patrick Thompson
- Severine C. Tournois
- Chensheng Wu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8414-4487)
- James Spero
- Elliot Schwartz
- Shu Du
- Robert Lafon
- Terra C. Hardwick
- Yingxin Bai (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9624-9131)
- H. W. Carlson
- Gregory D. Menkee
- Nicholas g. Zollo
- STEVEN I. HEISHMAN
Institutions
- Goddard Space Flight Center (US)
- KBR (United States) (US)
- Genesis Health System (US)
- Eaton (United States) (US)
- Athenex (United States) (US)
- XCell Science (United States) (US)
- Science Systems and Applications (United States) (US)
Publication Details
- Published
- 2025-03-19
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3042295
- Citations
- 1
- Primary Topic
- Adaptive optics and wavefront sensing
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 1.25