Optical Space Communications

Vincent W. S. Chan, Fellow, IEEE

Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems

Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science
Department of Aeronautics & Astronautics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

I. INTRODUCTION terrestrial user terminals and interconnected with fiber and

wireless networks via ‘gateways’ forming a global
Optical space communication systems can be the major heterogeneous network. Data networks based on such
enabling interconnection technology for many space LEO, MEO or GEO constellation topologies will be an
systems promising vastly improved system characteristics important future alternative to provide global data
and lower overall system costs. These systems include networking services, especially in areas of poor or
space-borne sensors such as earth resources satellites and congested terrestrial infrastructure deployment.
communications satellite systems and networks. Thus,
optical ‘crosslinks’ can provide connectivity between
satellites on opposite sides of the earth without expensive
intermediate ground relay stations and will be a key
technology to interconnect low earth orbit data satellite
constellations into a world-wide coverage network.

R Weather Satellite
Space Station

GEO
R G

G
R

Shuttle
G Gateway Wireless Fiber Satcom 1 Satcom 2
LEO

Figure 2. Integrated satellite-terrestrial network

Sensing Satellite

EOS
R
R
Figure 1. Space data relay network
Figure 1 illustrates the concept of a space data relay
backbone. This space network can simultaneously serve a
number of applications such as data readout of space
sensors, support of space exploration and science missions
and act as the conduit for data communications for fixed
ground terminals and mobile airborne, sea-borne and
ground vehicles. The links through the atmosphere are
assumed to be microwave due to poor optical propagation
in unavoidable bad weather conditions. Note that this
space backbone can be in high (~ 40,000 Km altitude),
medium (~ 5,000 – 15,000 Km) or low (~ 1,000 – 2,000
Km) earth orbits. Figure 2 specifically gives the example
of two Low Earth Orbit (LEO) constellations
interconnected by optical crosslinks and connected to
The first crosslinks are microwave or Radio Frequency
(RF) systems. Currently, the NASA Tracking and Data
Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) serves manned space
exploration (e.g. space shuttle) and science experiments
with both medium (~ 300Mbps) and low (< 1 Mbps) rate
RF access links. More recently, the Iridium voice-service
LEO system uses RF crosslinks for the interconnection of
the constellation. The cost of integrating, launching and
deploying a communication antenna or telescope is a very
rapidly increasing function of size and thus antenna size is
a major design driver for satellite applications. This
design issue is especially important for relay satellites
where there will be multiple apertures. Since the beam
divergence of an RF or optical beam is roughly
proportional to λ/D, where λ is the wavelength and D is
the aperture diameter, optics have much higher antenna
gains and can project the modest transmitter power into a
smaller area at the receiving satellite allowing much higher
data rates. Figure 3 compares crosslink aperture size for a
link distance equal to one synchronous orbit (44,000 Km).

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The RF links at 60 GHz require much larger aperture size
than a near-infrared optical link. These graphs are more
than mere antenna scaling exercises since they also take
into account current and reasonable projection of
transmitter power amplifier technologies. It can be seen
that RF aperture sizes become quite large at rates above
100 Mbps. Beyond these rates, optical crosslinks have a
clear advantage. In addition since the carrier frequencies
of optics are very high (~ 200 THz), each optical carrier
can accommodate very high data rates (~ 100 GHz), and
there is the possibility of using wavelength division
multiplexing (WDM) to further increase the data rate per
optical beam. Hence, there is no doubt that if optical
crosslink technology is mature it will greatly revolutionize
space system architectures.
2m
Aperture Diameter
1m
60 GHz/4W
60 GHz/60W
1.5 µ:m/1W
1.5 µ: m/20W
0
1 10 102 103 104
Data Rate in Mbps
Figure 3. Crosslink aperture size for GEO distance.
The quest for the deployment of optical space
communication system had been long and hard with
several decades of intense research and development
efforts resulting in no proven system in space, failed
attempts to deploy and underachieving prototypes in the
laboratories. However, recent new advances in technology
building blocks, architecture and system understandings
and designs, high performance laboratory prototypes and
space experiments, will soon establish space optical
communications as the key component that sets a new
paradigm for future cost-effective space systems. We will
present here the critical issues, complicated trade-offs and
inter-relationships between subsystems, and challenges
that exist in the design of such a system.
Figure 4 illustrates the logical architecture of an
integrated space-terrestrial network. The satellite
constellation is interconnected via optical crosslinks. The
access links from space or aircraft above weather can be
RF or optical (but would have to be optical for very high
data rates). The up and down links to the ground are
assumed to be RF because of weather availability reasons.
The space backbone can be used for:
(1) high speeds optical access from space platforms,
(2) interconnection of fiber wide area networks (WANs)
on the ground via RF up and down links,
(3) interconnection of regional metropolitan area
networks (MANs), and Local Area Networks
(LANs),
(4) providing backbone service for RF spot-beam access
of individual low to medium rate users.
WAN
MAN WAN MAN Regional
Interconnect Spotbeam
LAN Access
Gateway
G
G
Figure 4. Logical architecture for integrated space-
terrestrial network.
To maintain connectivity in a time varying but usually
deterministic (except for random accesses by aircraft for
example) topology without link outage, a ‘make-before-
105 break’ design must be used. This requires a second
telescope on both the transmitting and receiving platforms.
In most applications, from space sensor read-out to science
and manned-space flight missions, the links are typically
circuit-oriented (in the network sense). The timing for link
set-up and tear down is of the order of sub-second but no
faster than mS. Network functions such as random
multiple access and statistical aggregation of bursty
unscheduled traffic before entry to the backbone will be
done electronically. Hence, we can abstractize the optical
space communications application to be one of providing
high speed circuit services with time-varying connectivity
and set-up and tear-down times approximately the same as
those for terrestrial fiber networks. There are, however,
additional desirable characteristics that space optical links
need:
(1) Small antenna sizes (< 30 cm),
(2) Modest weight (100 – 200 lb.) and power (100 – 200
W),
(3) Continuous operations with the sun in or near the field
of view,
(4) Robust spatial acquisition and tracking system in the
presence of significant platform disturbances,
(5) Frequency tracking over significant Doppler shifts (~
10 GHz) and Doppler rates (~ 10 MHz/S),
(6) Simple multiplexing/demultiplexing, switching, and
routing for network applications,
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(7) Scalable architecture over a wide range of data rates are approximately balanced can thus be created based on
and link distances, and for multiple generations of pragmatic assessment of technology maturity and
technologies, subsystem performances Detailed engineering involving
(8) Reliable supply of components and making maximum complex numeric modeling can follow to validate the
re-use of optical fiber communications technology, high-level architecture and fill in the design. In this light
(9) Long life time in space with no service. an optical space communication system can be partitioned
into three moderately interacting subsystems each with
their separate critical design issues. These three
II. TECHNOLOGY AND ARCHITECTURES subsystems are:
(1) opto/mechanical/thermal subsystem,
Critical technology and system issues. (2) spatial acquisition and tracking subsystem,
(3) communication subsystem.
An optical space communication system is a truly Note that these are logical partitions and not physical
‘complex system’ in every sense of the term and especially partitions. In some areas, these subsystems share common
in the engineering system context. The system has many physical hardware. For example the beam steering mirror
high precision subsystems that are intimately coupled and is part of the spatial acquisition and tracking subsystem
interacting (often not weakly). Many failures and false and the opto/mechanical/thermal subsystem at the same
starts in the past can be traced to the lack of recognition of time. Figure 5 shows a high-level block diagram of an
all the critical engineering issues or the degrees of their optical space communication system. The presence of
severity at the beginning of the designing process. Not tight coupling among subsystems is evident.
surprisingly, in many past instances, the system engineer Point-
could not adequately deal with these issues head-on in the ahead
mirror
creation of the architecture resulting in failures. This Data in Transmitter
perhaps has been the biggest detractor of putting optical Fine-
communications in space over the past decades. Though steering
mirror
most of the failures usually manifest themselves in the Data out Receiver Telescope Light
in/out
shortcomings of particular subsystems, the culprit in
Coarse
reality is due to the lack of balance and good engineering steering
judgment in the design of the overall system. We will try Acquisition/ Estimator/
to provide some pragmatic suggestions as to how one Tracking
Detector controller
should approach the design of this very complicated
system.
Power Digital Attitude
Telemetry Command control
A sensible approach to the design of a complex conditioning processor interface

engineering system is first try to understand the technology

building blocks thoroughly and then breakdown the
complex system into a small number of logical
subsystems, (instead of immediately creating a massive
and precise numerical model). Thus, we can reduce the
problem to several smaller more manageable problems
where some definitive high level statements can be made
about good design directions and practices. If this
breakdown results in non-interacting subsystems, the
design process will be simplified into the optimization and
design of the individual subsystems. Unfortunately optical
space communication systems do not fall into this
category. The logical subsystems are highly dependent
and interacting. Changing one subsystem often
substantially influence the performance of another.
Nonetheless, great insights can still be derived from
understanding the properties of each of the critical
subsystems. Abstract and simplified models should be
created for them. The space of possible designs, keeping
in mind always the potential interactions with the other
subsystems, should be characterized. A high level
architecture where the risks of the individual subsystems
Spacecraft interface
Figure 5. High-level block diagram of an optical space
communication system.
A. Opto/mechanical/thermal subsystem
The opto/mechanical/thermal subsystem is perhaps the
most difficult subsystem to design properly and yet also
must be weight and power efficient. It has eluded many
designers in the past. The house keeping blocks at the
bottom of the diagram; telemetry, command, power
conditioning, digital processor and attitude control system
interface are conventional units and do not require any
unusual treatment in opto/mechanical/thermal engineering.
The optical part of the subsystem design however must
minimizes optical throughput losses (~ 3 dB), provide high
wave-front quality under all operational scenarios (~ λ/10),
maintain accurate beam pointing and alignment (~ 1/20
beamwidth).

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 The subsystem must survive harsh launch loads and its
performance must be maintained through on-orbit thermal
environment and in the presence of mechanical
disturbances from the spacecraft. A combination of clever
mechanical engineering and system techniques must be
used to arrive at a lightweight design. Sub-micron beam
alignment is probably the most difficult requirement to
meet through launch and on-orbit. The main principal that
is now generally used to significantly lighten the structure
is:
Optically lock onto a beacon from the receiving
platform, via sensors and fast steering mirrors and design,
as much as possible, a common optical path for the
transmit and receive beams while allowing the structure to
flex with mechanical disturbance and thermal distortions.
After a high-level mechanical design is sketched, detail
mechanical analysis can be done via a ‘finite element’
model approximating the system with a few thousand
point-weight elements connected by ‘springs and dampers’
of properties derived from the mechanical design of the
components and materials used. Figure 6 gives an
example of the graphical representation of such a model
with 2,000 nodes. Using this model one can analyze
launch survivability and optical alignment integrity during
operation.
2,000 Nodes
Point ahead ~ 20 - 100 µR
Figure 6. Finite element mechanical model.
The package can be also subjected to vastly varying
thermal scenarios, including full sun illumination, total
darkness, or transition between the two extremes. In
addition, waste heat is generated by electronics and
steering mechanisms. A good thermal design must
accompany the optical and mechanical designs so that
temperatures are stabilized and distortion and mis-
alignment causing temperature gradients are minimized.
Often, temperature sensors are placed throughout the
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package and heaters (consuming precious prime power)
are needed to bring the package to uniform temperature.
B. Spatial acquisition and tracking subsystem
A typical optical space communication system points it’s
transmit beam by tracking a beacon from the receiving
satellite and then dials in a point ahead angle. Before this
happens, each terminal must perform a spatial search of its
angular uncertainty region to locate the other satellite.
This spatial uncertainty is usually dominated by platform
attitude control errors (~ 1 mR). The nature of this error
can range from being a gaussian random process, as
contributed by a noisy earth or star spatial sensor, or a
random amplitude and phase sinusoid, as contributed by
the movement of the solar array drive seen through the
mechanical resonances of the platform. At low
frequencies the uncertainties can be 10’s of beamwidth
wide. Figure 7 illustrates the spatial acquisition geometry.
The number of spatial cells that need to be searched is
typical between 104 to 106. Due to the many mechanisms
that can yield slow drifts, it is prudent to try to acquire
within the time scale of one second, but should not require
substantial resources (weight and power) devoted to this
problem. Generally, acquisition strategies can be
classified into serial and parallel searches and then there
are many hybrids in between such as zooming. These
strategies can be used for both illumination by the beacon
and search by the acquisition receiver.
1 -5 mR
S
S
5 - 20 µR beamwidth
Figure 7. Spatial acquisition geometry
After acquisition, the system will enter the coarse and
then fine tracking phase. An illustration of the physical
hardware of the spatial tracking subsystem is given in
Figure 8. Isolators are used to dampen jitter from the
satellite platform as much as possible. The spatial error
sensor receives the beacon and derives an estimate of the
angle of arrival of the beacon. The signal is fed to a
feedback controller and any skew is tracked out by means
of a slow outer loop (~ 10 Hz) with the telescope coarse
pointing mirror and a fast inner loop (~ 1 KHz) with the
high-speed fine tracking mirror. The transmit beam (~ 10
µR) shares the same optical train as the beacon and thus
transmit beam jitters are reciprocally tracked out by the
steering mirrors. A point ahead angle (~ 20-60 µR) is
dialed into the outgoing beam to compensate for the finite
speed of light and receiver platform movements.
Transmit
Laser
Look-
Behind
Mirror
Relay Optics
Error Beam
Sensor
Combiner
Isolators
Spacecraft Platform
Figure 8. Spatial tracking subsystem
If one takes the simplifying assumption of the input
disturbances as gaussian and stationary plus a few random
amplitude and phase sinusoids due to mechanical jitters, it
is easy to analyze tracking performance using a stochastic
control model. A linearized model can be used at good
tracking conditions (which is the usual condition for link
operations) but the time-varying linear Kalman Bucy
filtering should be used for the nonstationary inputs. The
linear and stationary noise model is only a gross
approximation. To predict capture and especially loss of
lock behavior, non-linear modeling should be used and the
system should be optimized under new cost functions
where there is a higher premium put on loss of lock. It is
not prudent to operate at tracking errors of more than 1/10
beamwidth even if the extra power margin is available.
Tracking errors resulting in say > 3 dB average power loss
will make the communication system exhibit long
durations (~ mS) of poor bit error performance that will be
extremely difficult to recover using communication
systems techniques such as interleaving and error
correction coding.
C. Communications subsystem
The communication subsystem is the Archilles heel and
source of great system performance enhancement at the
same time. A typical space optical communication block
diagram is given in Figure 9.
Coder
Source
Interleaver
Master
laser
Modulator Power amp Mux Demux Pre-amp
Figure 9. Communication subsystem
Note the presence of an optical power amplifier since the
transmitted beam need to traverse long distances with no
intermediate amplifier save a relay satellite. Fortunately,
as opposed to fiber, the vacuum medium does not have
nonlinearities at these power levels. To the maximum
extent possible commercially available components should
be used for reliability and assured source of supply. Since
putting repeaters or mid-span amplifiers in space is
expensive, one needs the communication performance to
be as close to the fundamental limit of quantum detection
Tracking
Mirror as possible. All these point to the use of the 1.5 µm
wavelength.
The faint optical fields at the receiving satellite exhibit
significant quantum behavior and hence the optimum
receiver is necessarily quantum in nature. However often the
quantum optimum receiver is unrealizable with known
techniques or its implementation, even if it is known, is very
complicated. Thus, simple receiver realizations, called
‘structured receivers’, are used as near optimum
compromises. For example, direct or incoherent detection,
Figure 10, is most commonly used in optical systems. In
direct detection receivers, the received optical field is energy
(square law) detected by means of a photo-detector that
usually provides gain. Examples are APD's (avalanche-
photo-detectors), PIN-FET receivers or PMT's (photo-
multiplier-tubes).
s Optical Square law
Filter
|s|2
W eak detector
Signal
Beam Avalanche photo-detector
PIN-FET receiver
Figure 10. Direct detection receiver
Modulation schemes for direct detection systems are
limited to intensity modulations such as on-off signaling and
Manchester Coding. The ideal form of direct detection is a
photon counting receiver, i.e. a receiver with enough
electrical gain per photo-electron emitted by the detector
surface such that individual photo-events are detected and
counted by subsequent electronics.
The direct detection receiver can achieve theoretical
optimum performance at a bit error rate of 10-12 of 28
detected photons per bit for on-off keying. Current state-of-
the-art APD or PIN-FET receivers are 10-15 dB's away. The
degradation of performance at modest data rates (100 Mbps –
2.5 Gbps) is mostly due to the noisy avalanche process of an
Data APD or the front-end noise of electronics after detection.
Decoder
This type of noise increases as the bandwidth of the receiver
increases. Thus, higher rate receivers are noisier with greater
Demodualtor degradations in performance. At very high rates (10 Gbps -
100 Gbps), in addition to electronic noise, there are the
effects of bandwidth limitations of electronics and timing
system jitters giving rise to intersymbol interference and also
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crosstalk. With a suitable low noise optically pre-amplified oscillator intensity noise and (2) decreases local oscillator
direct detection receiver such as an EDFA, many of the lost power requirements by collecting all LO power and all signal
dB's can be recovered. This receiver has the same quantum power. In addition to the excess intensity noise of the local
mechanical model and detection limit as a heterodyne oscillator, the quantum noise of the local oscillator is also
receiver. Essentially, one can now make an EDFA that has a eliminated.
quantum limited noise figure of 3 dB. Near quantum limited
performance has also been achieved via the use of Figure 13 compares these structured receiver performance
heterodyne detection. Though the two types of receivers with that of the quantum optimum receiver for binary
have similar performance, the EDFA pre-amplified direct signaling. Note that the quantum model for pre-amplified
detection receiver lends itself to much easier implementation direct detection is the same as heterodyne detection, and
and is currently the favorite. should be viewed as equivalent to heterodyne detection
rather than standard direct detection.
Weak
Signal s+l |s+l|2
Heterodyne Homodyne Quantum
Beam Signal Set Direct Detection
Detection Detection Optimum
s Square Law Electrical
2 Re{l*s}
Detector Filter
On-off Signal 2Ns Ns/2 Ns 2Ns
l
Orthogonal Signal
Local Ns Ns/2 Ns 2Ns
(PPM, FSK)
Oscillator
Antipodal
Not
Signal Applicable Ns 2Ns 4Ns
Figure 11. Coherent receiver (PSK)

In coherent detection, Figure 11, an optical local oscillator
field is added to the received optical field and the sum is
Receiver performance comparison; probability of detection error, Pr[εε] for binary signaling
1 -θ
Exponent θ of tightest exponential bound, Pr[ε] = e
2
Ns = average number of detected photons per bit
.

detected by a photo-detector. The resulting signal is further

processed at base-band (homodyne detection) or at an
intermediate frequency (heterodyne detection). Phase and/or
frequency tracking of the signal field by the local oscillator
laser are required. The mixing of the weak signal field and
the strong local oscillator field at the front-end of a coherent
receiver provides linear amplification and converts the
optical signal into an electrical output with gain (usually ten's
of dB's) raising the signal level well above the noise of
subsequent electronics. That is why a detector with gain is
not required and quantum-limited performance (for coherent
detection not quantum optimum detection) can be achieved.
Coherent detection can be used on any type of modulations
including those that imprint information on the phase of the
carrier.
Weak
Detectors
Signal
Beam
s -
+ +
Figure 13. Receiver performance
On the transmitter side, in addition to picking the
modulation scheme with high theoretical efficiency the
design also has to use a configuration that maximizes
hardware performance. Thus a low power master laser
(Figure 9) is used to give the optical signal low phase and
amplitude noise and good frequency control. A separate
external modulator is used to reduce chirp and also allow
higher bandwidth modulation reducing crosstalk. A 1–20
W optical power amplifier can be used to reduce telescope
size. High power EDFA’s can achieve such power levels
at high pump conversion efficiencies. Figure 14 shows a
two-stage Erbium amplifier pumped by 980nm laser pump
modules. This technique cannot scale without limit to very
high power because the loss at each cascaded stage
accumulates and finally become too large so additional
stages no longer increase output power.
Signal in
WDM coupler WDM coupler
Signal out

50/50 l
Local Erbium fiber Erbium fiber
Oscillator
980 nm pump 980 nm pump
module module
Figure 12. Balanced coherent receiver
Figure 14. Cascaded Erbium amplifier
The dual-detector coherent receiver, Figure 12, is often used
in space applications to achieve the highest receiver Figure 15 shows a design for very high power EDFAs by
sensitivities made possible by: (1) canceling of local using a double (multiple) clad fiber. The outer core is multi-

6
mode and can be doped by an intermediary material such as
ytterbium (Yb). Energy will then transfer from the Yb to the
Erbium ion in the single mode inner core. This configuration
allows more pumps to be end-coupled into the multi-mode
outer core or better yet coupled via side pumping of the outer
core. It is this configuration that 20 W output power have
been achieved. Note for a power amplifier at the transmitter,
the noise figure of the amplifier is not as crucial and by no
means has to be near quantum limit. Figure 3 shows that
with a 20 W amplifier one can close a 40 Gbps link for
44,000 Km with 15 cm apertures. Higher data rates can be
realized by using WDM. However, the WDM coupler must
be placed after the power amplifier for each wavelength
making a low loss (< 1 dB) WDM coupler an essential
component.
Figure 15. Double-clad Erbium amplifier
IV. RESEARCH FOREFRONTS
Optical space communications, with some of the recent
breakthroughs in technology, system understanding and
architecture design, is on the verge of being a reality. An
interesting question is: “where is the field going and what
is it maximum potential?” There can be plenty of
opportunity for performance improvements and better
system characteristics in the future and optical space
communications will become the buttress technology for
data communications over satellite constellations for
regional and global coverage. One interesting property
space optical communications has is the fact that the power
attenuation due to free space diffraction loss is only
inversely proportional to the square of the distance
traveled whereas optical fiber attenuation is exponential in
distance and amplifiers/repeaters at regular distances are
required to maintain performance. Thus one can see the
possibility that though the start-up cost of optical space
communications is higher, eventually for long enough
distances it can be more economical than long distance
(especially undersea) fiber systems. We believe the cross-
over between the two cost curves can be around 5,000 Km
(using undersea fiber systems as a bench mark).
Meanwhile any improvement in the space system’s
characteristics will give it more of an edge. The key to this
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is the improvement of the communication subsystem
performance.
Forefront in communication subsystem research
The first big opportunity for improving communication
performance is the use of error correcting codes and higher
symbol size signaling. Implementable codes (such as turbo
codes and low density parity check codes) exist that can
approach the channel capacity of 1– 2 bits/detected-photon
(for signaling schemes such as binary on-off signaling),
yielding ~ 10 dB gains over the uncoded system. It turns
out that the capacity of the ideal direct detection channel
without restriction on the symbol size actually approaches
infinity using increasing large symbol size M-ary PPM
signaling. Though this result is for a simplified model of
the optical field, we believe another ~ 10 dB gains can be
realized if we pursue the joint optimization of modulation
and coding.
The vacuum medium in space can be well characterized
by an idealized quantum channel. The full quantum
channel capacity problem is yet to be solved. Figure 16
illustrate the quantum channel model in its simplest form.
The problem is to maximize the capacity of the quantum
optical channel, subject to the bandwidth W and energy P
constraints, over the choice of input optical field states,
{|α>}, and the space of quantum receiver measurements
{Π}. The quantity I(.) in Figure 16, usually called the
‘Mutual Information’ between the input and the output of
the channel, is the difference between the entropy of the
input (characterizing the potential amount of input
information content) and the conditional entropy of the
input given the results of the measurement at the receiver
(or the remaining information content that has not be
resolved by measurement). This decrement is the amount
of information transmitted and maximizing I(.) gives the
capacity. Note that even when we find a better quantum
receiver, its realization using available optical techniques
is not guaranteed and is usually a tough problem. There is
no indication as to how much potential performance gains
can be achieved using full quantum receivers and signal
designs. Given the singular result of infinite capacity for
the simplified direct detection channel, we conjecture the
gains can be substantial.
Source Receiver
Bandwidth W
Channel Measurement Πj}
{Π
Energy P
States αi>}
{|α Outputs Ψj}
{Ψ
Quantum capacity {α};{Ψ}
{α} {Ψ})
C = max I({α} {Ψ} subject to W, P
Π},{α}
Π} {α}
{Π}
Figure 16. Quantum channel
New horizons for opto/mechanical/thermal engineering
The great gains in communication performance can be
used to vastly improve the opto/mechanical/thermal
subsystem. The biggest ‘quantum’ jump will be to reduce
the telescope to a small enough size so that one can steer it
with high enough speeds (~500–1,000 Hz) to track out all
the disturbances, and eliminate the second high speed
steering mirror. This substantially reduces the component
count (such as a set of pupil relay optics for the fast
steering mirror) of the optical train and the smaller
telescope yields easier, lighter, less power consuming (for
thermal control) and cheaper designs.
Forefronts for the spatial tracking system
The designs for the spatial tracking subsystem today tend
to be too conservative using linear system and stationary
stochastic processes models, with plenty of margin to
guard against model inaccuracies. This results in
unnecessarily high structural weight for rigidity and
unneeded high speed (power consuming) mirrors. Moving
to broader beams (due to increase in communication
performance), use of more accurate nonstaionary
characterization of disturbances, time varying (but linear)
Kalman filtering at good quiescent tracking conditions, full
nonlinear stochastic control system models at capture and
loss of lock and the additional use of hybrid digital
hardware and software to realize these systems, will
substantially improve tracking performance and allow the
design of the subsystem with much less weight and power.
Spacecraft LAN, and routing/switching and analog links
In the full vision of a space wide area network, the relay
node data flow system can consume a lot of resources.
WDM optical LAN, routing and switching techniques
developed for terrestrial networks can be used to enhance
system performance, except in this case the goal is to
reduce weight and power. By-pass traffic through the
nodes can be wavelength switched. Analog space links
with high linearity and low distortions can substantially
simplify switching on board the spacecraft. This gain must
be traded off against the loss of link performance over a
fully regenerative relay node. In the case of LEO systems,
one will find pass-through traffic constitute a substantial
fraction of the crosslink capacity. That and the less
stressful shorter link distances make analog links and
optical switching on-board the spacecraft very attractive.
In addition, when the source of the data is analog to begin
with, such as the output of a space-borne sensing system,
analog transmission at high fidelity may help substantially
reduce system weight and power by eliminating A/D
converters, data compression hardware and software and
digital regenerators at relay nodes.
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Enabler for shared on-orbit resources
It is likely that in the near future optical space
communications will become much more economical
than RF up and down links. For space-borne sensors
and RF access communication systems one can think
about the concept of using shared space-borne
processing to reduce the amount of data to be sent
earth-bound and thus reducing the requirement for
very large down link data rates, Figure 17. Modest
RF down links can be used for these systems,
substantially lowering the overall system cost. The
concept is to locate somewhere in the space-borne
backbone, the most advance processor at the time of
replenishment, which can be as frequent as yearly.
With this agile replenishment on-demand technique
we can reduce the requirement of cumulative
radiation hardening and thus use the most powerful
processor available. Current architectures use
radiation-hard processors (equivalent in performance
to 5-7 year old designs) and these processors has to
function for 7-10 years, making the end-of-life
processing power very obsolete. Shared in-space
processing can support a much better system
architecture. Computing elements only have to live 1-
2 years. On the average this architecture will be
using processor, data bus and memory technologies
that are 10 to 15 years more advanced than current
practices, all to be made possible with the
advancement of space optical communications.
Backbone
Shared
Processor
RF
Figure 17. Shared space-borne processor architecture
CONCLUSIONS
Optical space communication is on the verge of reality.
Many tough technology and architecture issues have been
addressed and well-balanced architecture designs exist.
The advent of this technology will revolutionize space
networking and likely will create cost-competitive wide-
area satellite-based data networks in the future. New
research forefronts promise even higher performance
systems in the future and there is the potential of
substantial gains over what can be done today.

Optical space communication systems are very

complex engineering systems, much more so than
terrestrial fiber networks. Proper design approaches are
needed for their architectural construct and analysis.
Breaking down the complex system into interacting but
logically separate subsystems for their conceptual design
and analysis is the key to success. The entire vast span of
technology should be considered in the creation of the
architectural design but the designer should not let any one
technology drive the architecture to a singular solution.

FURTHER READING

[1] V. W. S. Chan, “Space Coherent Optical

Communication Systems – An Introduction,” IEEE
Journal of Lightwave Technology, vol. LT-5, No. 4, pp.
633-637, Apr. 1987.
[2] V. W. S. Chan, “Optical Space Communications: Key
Building Block for Wide Area Space Network,” LEOS’99,
San Francisco, CA November 1999.
[3] P. Van Hove, V. W. S. Chan, “Spatial Acquisition
Algorithms and Systems for Optical ISL,” IEEE
International Conference on Communications, June 1983,
Boston MA, pp. E1.6.1-E1.6.7.
[4] E. A. Swanson, et al, “Heterodyne Spatial Tracking
System for Optical Space Communication,” IEEE
Transactions on Communications, vol. COM-34, No. 2
Feb. 1986 pp. 118-126.
[5] R. S. Bondurant, “High Rate Space Laser
Communication,” LEOS’99, San Francisco, CA Nov.
1999.
[6] Helstrom, C. W., Liu. J., Gordon, J, "Quantum
Mechanical Communication Theory," Proc. IEEE, Vol.
58, 1970, pp. 1578-1598.
[7] V. Gapontsev, “High Power Optical Amplifiers,”
LEOS’99, San Francisco, CA Nov. 1999.
[8] J. Kaufmann, “Analog Link Design,” Proceeding of
SPIE: Free Space Communication Technologies VIII,
1996, vol. 22699 pp. 38-49.
[9] G.L. Abbas, V. W. S. Chan, T. K. Yee, “A Dual-
detector Optical Heterodyne Receiver for Local Oscillator
Noise Suppression,” Journal of Lightwave Technology,
Vol. LT-3, No.5 October 1985.
[10] H. P. Yuen, V. W. S. Chan, “Noise in homodyne and
heterodyne detection,” Optics Letters, March 1983 Vol.8,
No.3.
[11] V. W. S. Chan, "Optical Space Communications,"
IEEE Journal on Selected Topics In Quantum Electronics
Vol.6. No.6, November/December, 2000. -LEOS
Millennium Issue.