Issued patent
Fine-pointing Optical Communication System Using Laser Arrays
An issued NASA patent from the Technology Transfer catalog.
About this technology
Overview
NASA Ames has developed a novel system in its portfolio for optical data transmissions from satellites using laser arrays for laser beam pointing. It is a fine pointing capability for laser beam pointing to augment body pointing by CubeSats in Low Orbit Earth (LEO). It is simple, static and compact. It combines a small lens system and a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL)/Photodetector Array in a novel way for laser beam pointing. Body pointing was used earlier for CubeSats in LEO in NASA's Optical Communications and Sensors Demonstration (OCSD) program [1]. This fine pointing capability was computer simulated for the CubeSats used in the OCSD program [2,3]. With fine pointing, the spot size on the Earth was reduced by a factor of eight with a reduction in laser output power by a factor of sixty-four, thereby mitigating the thermal load challenge on the OCSD CubeSats.