Optical space communications

TLDR

Optical space communications is on the verge of becoming a reality and will be a key building block for wide‑area space data networks of the future. The paper discusses the critical technology and architecture issues that must be addressed to realize optical space communications systems and presents examples of high‑level designs. The authors suggest design methodologies that treat optical space communications as complex engineering systems and propose a technique to break them into interacting yet logically separate subsystems for design and analysis. The study outlines fundamental performance limits and identifies promising avenues for future research and development.

Abstract

Optical space communications is on the verge of becoming a reality. It will be a key building block for wide-area space data networks of the future. We discuss the critical technology and architecture issues to be addressed for the realization of these systems, and present examples of high level designs. Design methodologies treating these as complex engineering systems, and the technique to breakdown the systems into interacting but logically separate subsystems for design and analysis, are suggested. Fundamental limits of performance and avenues for promising future research and development are given.