High Capacity Optical Earth-Mars Communication System for Future Mars Human Community

摘要

This paper discusses the high capacity optical communications system between Earth and Mars to be required in the era of future Mars human community. First, the capacity of the Earth-Mars communication link is discussed based on the necessity of creating the mirror database of Earth for the Internet search action on Mars, and it concluded that at least 8 Gbps link will be required in connection with the recent Internet movement to the Web 2.0, if the human community is created on Mars probably around 2050. Then a preliminary design of the 10 Gbps optical link is performed including the comparison of various optical modulation/demodulation technologies to realize the 10 Gbps system. The authors propose a hybrid of FSK (Frequency Shift Keying) and PPM (Pulse Position Modulation) system using AWG (Array Wave Guide) multiplexer. The location of the relay satellite and the configuration of the optical transceiver are discussed to obtain a good pointing performance needed for the very long distance optical communication link. Finally, the research and development items for the future studies to achieve higher capacity are discussed.