Design of an optical ground station for in-orbit checkout of free-space laser communication payloads

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Abstract
Within the frame of the Date Relay and Technology Mission Program the European Space Agency (ESA) is currently developing optical terminals for high data rate free space laser communication via inter-satellite and inter-orbit links. As a first application such an optical terminal will be embarked on the French low-Earth orbiting satellite SPOT 4. This terminal will communicate with a similar optical terminal on-board ESA's geostationary spacecraft ARTEMIS. It is planned to implement similar optical communication payloads also on ESA's Data Relay Satellite and other spacecraft in geostationary or low-earth orbits. For the purpose of in-orbit check-out of such payloads ESA is establishing an Optical Ground Station (OGS) at the Observatorio del Teide at Izana, Tenerife, Spain, in cooperation with the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canaries, La Laguna, and supported by the German Space Agency (Deutsche Agentur fur Raumfahrtangelegenheiten, Bonn. The selected OGS site provides excellent seeing conditions combined with high atmospheric transmission, which are important prerequisites for successful ground station operations. This paper describes the design of the OGS, highlights some design criteria and discusses the expected performance.

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