Laser beam propagation in ground-to-OICETS laser communication experiments

摘要

The first bi-directional laser communication demonstration between an optical ground station and the Optical Inter-orbit Communication Engineering Test Satellite (OICETS) was successfully conducted in March, May, and September, 2006, with an uplink of 2 Mbps and a downlink of 50 Mbps. The optical ground station, located in Koganei, Tokyo, Japan, is operated by the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), Japan. Four laser beams were transmitted from the optical ground station to the OICETS satellite in order to reduce the optical signal's intensity fluctuation due to atmospheric turbulence. The optical scintillation as a function of the number of beams and the frequency response were measured, and the uplink and downlink laser transmission results were obtained.