HydRON: High thRoughput Optical Network

Abstract

HydRON ambition is to seamlessly integrate the space optical transport network into the terrestrial high capacity network infrastructure: the “Fibre in the Sky”. In HydRON, it is envisaged “All-Optical payloads” being interconnected by means of optical inter-satellite links in the Tbps regime (Terabit per second) furnishing the “bridges” for a truly “Fibre in the Sky” network. Technically speaking HydRON aims at Tbps “All-Optical Network” solutions, dividing the satellite payload into (i) a network part and (ii) an application / service part, equivalent to the backbone part and the access part of optical fibre networks on ground. The application / service part (i.e., the Customer’s payload) has access to the network part (i.e., the HydRON elements), in a similar way as computers are plugged into the terrestrial network. HydRON encompasses optical feeder links connecting to a space network of in-orbit technology demonstrator payloads, which are interconnected by means of Tbps laser inter-satellite links. WDM (Wavelength Division Multiplexing) laser communication terminals (on ground and in space), optical switching / routing capabilities and high-speed interface electronics will be implemented on-board the network nodes in space to enable a high throughput network connection to the application / service part (i.e., the Customer’s payload). The space network concept will reduce the dependency on atmospheric conditions of single ground stations as all HydRON nodes can get their particular data via the network they are interfacing with. A combination of new optical technologies, novel photonics equipment and efficient network concepts will be proven in orbit. The system architecture must be adaptable to the changing network conditions. The current status of the above mentioned investigations will be summarised in the present paper.