Deep space optical communications technology demonstration

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) Project, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), implemented a technology demonstration (TD) of optical communications from planetary distances. The objective of this first link demonstration beyond the earth-moon system, was to retire the risk of infusing operational optical communications and navigation services from Mars and beyond distances. The potential for utilizing optical services to augment state-of-art telecommunication data-rates by an order of magnitude, while utilizing comparable mass and power resources, was a key motivation. Relief in allocated radio frequency bandwidth congestion by operating in an unregulated part of the electromagnitic spectrum is an added benefit. Finally, Deep Space Network (DSN) oversubscription could also benefit from fully validated optical services in the future. The implemented DSOC TD system includes: (i) a flight laser transciever (FLT) hosted on-board NASA’s Psyche spacecraft; (ii) ground stations instrumented for transmitting and receiving laser signals, using exisiting ground telescope assets, and, (iii) a mission operations system (MOS) for planning and coordinating activities with the Psyche mission. The DSOC TD operations started shortly after the Psyche spacecraft launch in October 2023 and continued at a weekly cadence until the end of July 2024. Returned data-rates demonstrated, spanned 267 Mb/s – 8.33 Mb/s, from distances covering 0.13 – 2.68 astronomical units (AU), or 18.7 – 400 million kiometers. Pre-stored ultra-high definition video and internally generated high-rate DSOC telemetry, that otherwise could not be returned, were transferred over the 1550 nm downlink. Psyche mission engineering data was also returned as a part of the demonstration. Transmitted uplink lasers at 1064 nm, initiated optical link acquisition, tracking, and forward communications at 1.8 kb/s. Limited optical commanding to modify FLT operational parameters were demonstrated out to distances of 3.1 AU. Operations were occassionally interrupted by weather for about 14% of the weekly contacts. About 35% of link activites were conducted under sub-optimal conditions with thin cloud cover over the ground stations. In this paper, an overview of the DSOC TD with a high-level system description followed by the concept of operations and some results will be presented.