2015 IEEE International Conference on Space Optical Systems and Applications (ICSOS)

An Overview of NASA’s Latest Efforts in

Optical Communications
Bernard L. Edwards
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA

Bryan Robinson
MIT Lincoln Laboratory
Lexington, MA 02420 USA

Abhijit Biswas and Jon Hamkins

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
Pasadena, CA 91109 USA

Abstract – This paper provides an overview of
NASA’s latest efforts in developing and deploying
optical communications. It focuses on NASA’s
flagship Near Earth effort, the Laser
Communications Relay Demonstration Project
(LCRD), a joint project among NASA’s Goddard
Space Flight Center (GSFC), the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, California Institute of Technology (JPL),
and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lincoln Laboratory (MIT/LL). LCRD will provide at
least two years of bi-directional optical
communications at user data rates of up to 1.244
Gbps in an operational environment. This paper will
provide an update on the project. This paper will
also touch on NASA’s efforts for a Low Earth Orbit
(LEO) space optical terminal, developments for
future deep space optical systems, and address
NASA’s latest effort in international standardization.
I. NASA’s Laser Communications Relay
Demonstration Project
In recent years there have been significant
advancements in the development of laser based
communication systems for space applications.
These optical communication systems hold the
promise of better than an order of magnitude higher
data rates over RF space communications while
using less power, having lower mass, and
occupying less space than comparable RF
communication systems. A few international space
agencies have already begun to demonstrate the
technology in space and build experimental ground
stations.
NASA’s flagship effort in high rate optical
communications for Near Earth applications is the
Laser Communications Relay Demonstration
(LCRD). LCRD is a joint project between NASA
Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, and MIT Lincoln
Laboratory. The demonstration will provide at
least two years of high rate space optical
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communications from geosynchronous orbit to two
optical ground stations located in the United States.
LCRD’s flight payload will be hosted on a
commercial communications satellite and consists
of two optical communications terminals in space
with a switch between them. A single optical
communications terminal on LCRD consists of an
optical module (a telescope or head), a modem, and
an optical module controller. The exact orbital slot
of the satellite is unknown at the time of this paper,
but 120 degrees west has been used to support
various analyses and studies.
Each of the two optical communications terminals
to be flown on the GEO spacecraft will transmit
and receive optical signals. LCRD will support
differential phase shift keying (DPSK) which can
be used at extremely high data rates and has
sufficient background noise tolerance to support
communications when the sun is in the field of
view. LCRD leverages a DPSK modem previously
designed by MIT Lincoln Laboratory as a cost
effective approach to providing a DPSK signal. It
can both transmit and receive, supporting data rates
from 2 Mbps to 1.24 Gbps. Reduced data rates are
achieved efficiently via a “burst mode” format,
with data bursts interspersed with “dead times”
where no signal is transmitted. In future relay
scenarios, the modem could be replaced by a higher
rate DPSK modem that would support data rates
beyond 10 Gbps. The DPSK modem employs
identical signaling for both the uplink and
downlink directions. The DPSK transmitter
generates a sequence of fixed duration pulses at a
2.88 GHz clock rate. A bit is encoded in the phase
difference between consecutive pulses. As
demodulation is accomplished with a single Mach-
Zehnder optical interferometer regardless of data
rate, the clock rate remains fixed. The DPSK
transmitter utilizes a Master Oscillator Power
Amplifier (MOPA) architecture; the Erbium Doped

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 2015 IEEE International Conference on Space Optical Systems and Applications (ICSOS)
Fiber Amplifier (EDFA) amplifies the optical
signal to a 0.5-W average power level. Data rates
below the maximum are accomplished via “burst-
mode” operation, where the transmitter sends
pulses only a fraction of the time, sending no
optical power the remainder of the time. Since the
EDFA is average power limited, the peak power
during the bursts is increased; thus the rate
reduction is accomplished in a power efficient
manner [1, 2].
The DPSK receiver has an optical pre-amplifier
stage and an optical filter, at which point the light
is split between a clock recovery unit and the
communications receiver. The receiver uses a
delay-line interferometer followed by balanced
photo-detectors to compare the phases of
consecutive pulses, making a hard decision on each
channel bit.
While coding and interleaving will be applied in
the ground terminal to mitigate noise and
atmospheric fading, the DPSK flight receiver does
not decode nor de-interleave. The modems instead
support a relay architecture where up- and down-
link errors are corrected together in a decoder
located at the destination ground station.
In addition to DPSK, LCRD will also support pulse
position modulation (PPM). The transmitter
modulates the signal with a sequence of 16-ary
PPM symbols (a signal pulse is placed in exactly
one of each 16 temporal slots). The maximum
PPM data rate is 311 Mbps. The transmitter utilizes
the same 2.88 GHz clock rate. When operating in
PPM mode, the receive modem utilizes the same
optical pre-amplification and optical filter as is
used in DPSK. The optical signal is converted to
an electrical signal by means of a photo-detector.
The electrical signal in each slot is compared to a
threshold (which can be varied to account for
atmospheric turbulence) in a simple, yet sensitive
PPM receiver implementation. This method
leverages previous work performed by MIT
Lincoln Laboratory [3].
To be an optical relay demonstration, LCRD will
create a relay connection between two optical
ground stations. A significant objective of LCRD
is to demonstrate advance relay operations on the
GEO spacecraft. LCRD will enable a wide variety
of relay operations through the Space Switching
Unit that connect the two optical terminals. A
known challenge with optical communication
through the atmosphere is the susceptibility to
cloud cover; link operations will be configurable to
allow support for a variety of scenarios. In
addition to being able to communicate with two
ground stations, the LCRD flight payload on the
GEO spacecraft has a requirement to be able to
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support high rate bi-directional communications
between LEO and GEO as well.
The LCRD Ground Segment is comprised of the
LCRD Mission Operations Center (LMOC) and
two optical ground stations: Ground Station 1 and
Ground Station 2. Each optical ground station
must provide three functions when communicating
with one of the two space optical communications
terminals on the GEO spacecraft: receive the
communications signal from the GEO space
terminal, transmit a signal to the GEO space
terminal, and transmit an uplink beacon beam so
that the GEO space terminal points to the correct
location on the Earth. The uplink beacon,
transmitted from each Earth ground station, must
provide a pointing reference to establish the GEO
space terminal beam pointing direction.
The LMOC will perform all scheduling, command,
and control of the LCRD payload and the ground
stations. The LMOC is connected with all other
segments, and communicates with the two optical
ground stations using high capacity terrestrial
connections. Connection to the space segment will
be provided either through one of the ground
stations, or through a lower capacity connection to
the host spacecraft’s Mission Operations Center
(HMOC) and then to the LCRD flight payload by
the spacecraft’s RF link.
Figure 1 – Ground Station 1, OCTL Site, Table
Mountain, CA
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory will enhance its
Optical Communications Telescope Laboratory
(OCTL) so that it can be used as Ground Station 1
of the demonstration. The OCTL is located on top
of Table Mountain in the San Gabriel Mountains of
southern California and houses a 1-m f#75.8 coudé
focus telescope; it is shown in Figure 1 above. The
large aperture readily supports the high data rate
DPSK and PPM downlinks from the LCRD space
 2015 IEEE International Conference on Space Optical Systems and Applications (ICSOS)

terminal with adequate link margin. Required to Figure 3 below, White Sands has much more
operate 24/7, in the presence of winds, and as close variability in performance than the Hawaii sites.
as 5 degrees solar angles, the OCTL telescope
shown in Figure 1 will be enclosed in a temperature
controlled dome with a transparent window to
allow laser beam and radar transmission [4].

NASA is also working with MIT Lincoln

Laboratory to develop a second optical
communications ground station to be deployed in
Hawaii; the LCRD project refers to this as Ground
Station 2.

Ground Station 2 will have a 60 cm receive

aperture, a 15 cm transmit aperture, and be located
within an approximately 5.5 meter diameter dome
on one of the islands in Hawaii; ideally it will be
located at a summit of one of the volcanoes there to
get above the clouds and have excellent
atmospheric seeing conditions. NASA has been
specifically studying Haleakala, a dormant volcano
on the island of Maui, Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa,
on the Big Island.
Figure 3 – Mean Monthly Availability
Northrop Grumman found that the optical
turbulence is typically much more benign on Maui
than White Sands or at Table Mountain (location of
Ground Station 1) in California; see Figure 4
below.
Figure 4 shows the Cumulative Distribution
Function (CDF) of r0, the atmospheric coherence
length, for Table Mountain, White Sands, and
Haleakala. The CDF was referenced to zenith and
1550 nm. Haleakala has the most benign
turbulence with a median r0 = 43.5 cm. White
Sands and Table Mountain had similar statistics;
median r0 was 22.8 cm for White Sands, and 20.0
cm for Table Mountain.

Figure 2 – Ground Station 2 Site Telescope and

Dome

The laser subsystem consists of a custom photonics

assembly that produces a low power (<10 mW)
fiber-coupled optical signal, followed by a
commercially obtained high-power optical
amplifier. The fiber amplifier can produce up to 10
W of optical power but will be limited by software
to a maximum power of 7.3 W during operation.
After accounting for transmission loss of the
transmit telescope and the window in the dome, the
maximum power emitted into free space outside the
dome is 5.4 W.

Originally, LCRD was going to use a ground
station deployed at White Sands, New Mexico,
which was the site of the primary ground station for
the Lunar Laser Communication Demonstration
(LLCD). However, there was some concern with
the availability of an operational ground station at
White Sands during the late summer months. Thus
at NASA’s request, Northrop Grumman performed
a study to look at the suitability of putting Ground
Station 2 at White Sands, on the Island of Hawaii
(the Big Island), or on Maui. As can be seen from
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Figure 4 – Comparison of Haleakala to White
Sands and Table Mountain
When considering the total availability of a site to a
satellite at 120 degrees west, Table Mountain and
White Sands resulted in an availability of 83.8%
while Table Mountain and Haleakala resulted in an
availability of 88.5%. Furthermore, some of the
experiments proposed for LCRD requires that both
ground stations be available simultaneously. For
simultaneous cloud-free-line-of-site, Table
Mountain and White Sands have a predicted

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 2015 IEEE International Conference on Space Optical Systems and Applications (ICSOS)
availability of 37.1% while Table Mountain and
Haleakala have a predicted availability of 48.2%.
Similar analysis is being done for both Mauna Kea
and Mauna Loa on the Big Island. Mauna Loa is
also being studied by NASA for a future home of a
large deep space optical terminal; such a terminal
would be much larger than the near Earth optical
terminal being developed for Ground Station 2.
The two ground stations and the LCRD flight
payload in GEO will allow NASA to [5]:
• Demonstrate high rate 24/7 optical
communications operations over a 2 year
period from GEO to Earth
• Demonstrate real-time optical relay from one
Ground Station through the GEO flight
payload to the second Ground Station
• Use both a Near Earth (DPSK) and a Deep
Space (PPM) compatible modulation and
coding
• Demonstrate 1.244 Gbps (2.880 Gbps
uncoded) uplink and downlink using
Differential Phase Shift Keying (DPSK)
• Demonstrate 311 Mbps uplink and downlink
using Pulse Position Modulation (PPM)
• Demonstrate the Next Generation TDRS
compatible optical terminal capable of
supporting both Direct to Earth and GEO to
LEO (ISS Terminal) communications
• Demonstrate operational concepts for
reliable, high-rate data delivery in face of
terrestrial weather variations typically
encountered by real NASA missions
• Demonstrate control of handover among
ground sites
• Performance testing and demonstrations of
coding and link layer protocols over optical
links with an orbiting testbed
II. Low Earth Orbit to Geosynchronous
Earth Orbit Relay Terminal Development
NASA would like to fly a terminal on a Low Earth
Orbit (LEO) spacecraft that can communicate with
the Laser Communications Relay Demonstration
flying in GEO.
NASA is working with MIT Lincoln Laboratory to
develop optical communications technologies for
LEO spacecraft. Communication links between a
LEO and a geosynchronous spacecraft, like LCRD,
differ from GEO to Ground links in a number of
ways. Most significantly, depending on the
particulars of the LEO platform attitude and orbit,
the LEO terminal will generally require a much
larger field of regard (typically ~hemispherical, or
larger) and much higher slew rates (>2 mrad / sec)
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than the GEO terminal. Additionally, because of
the relative motions of the LEO spacecraft and the
GEO spacecraft, LEO to GEO links require larger
point-ahead angles (~ +/- 75 microradians) and
accommodation of larger Doppler frequency shifts
(~5 GHz) [6].
NASA originally considered basing such a terminal
on the LCRD Optical Module, the Controller
Electronics, and the LCRD DPSK modem.
However, some important and difficult
modifications would have to be made in order for
the terminal to provide high rate communications
from the LEO to the GEO relay. Specifically, the
output laser power would have to be increased
from 0.5 Watts to approximately 3 Watts, a beacon
needs to be added to the terminal, the gimbal range
of motion needs to be increased, and a larger point-
ahead angle needs to be supported.
Probably the hardest change to accommodate is the
addition of a beacon. The LCRD GEO terminal
expects to see a beacon to aide acquisition from
one of the ground stations. That beacon will have
to be provided by the LEO terminal. In the future,
it is expected that the beacon wavelength will be
provided by the terminal flying on the future GEO
relay; another option would be to use a beaconless
approach to pointing and acquisition, which has
been studied by NASA in the past.
Figure 5 – Next Generation LEO Terminal
Modules
After a feasibility study was performed by MIT
Lincoln Laboratory, it was decided to pursue a new
terminal concept for use on LEO missions. This
next-generation terminal includes an off-axis 10-
cm telescope mounted on gimbals with greater than
a hemispherical field of regard. The telescope is
coupled via a Coudé path to fixed back-end optics
which separate transmit, receive, and acquisition
signals, compensate for line-of-sight jitter from
spacecraft motion or other sources, and implement
the point-ahead functionality. The terminal also
includes a wide-angle beacon that can be used for
initial acquisition in a cooperative pointing system
 2015 IEEE International Conference on Space Optical Systems and Applications (ICSOS)
with the GEO terminal. Figure 5 is a conceptual
diagram of the new terminal.
A laboratory prototype of this new LEO terminal
with industry-provided subsystems is in
development. NASA plans to deploy the new
terminal on the International Space Station, shortly
after the launch of the LCRD space relay segment.
The terminal will then be used to demonstrate a
1.25 Gbit/s data relay from the ISS in low-Earth
orbit to the ground via the LCRD space segment in
geosynchronous orbit.
III. Deep Space Optical Communications
Developments
NASA’s future deep space human and robotic
missions will require enhanced
telecommunications. NASA Technology
Roadmaps call out 10 to 100 times enhanced
capacity without an increase in mission burden in
mass, volume, power and/or spectrum. Optical
communications is a relatively new technology that
can help augment NASA’s telecommunication
“tool-box”. Recent and planned near-Earth
demonstrations lie the Lunar Laser Communication
Demonstration (LLCD) and the Laser
Communication Relay Demonstration (LCRD) are
addressing the near-Earth needs, however, deep-
space still remains a challenge where the increase
in link difficulty (data-rate × squared range, Mb/s-
AU2) is 30-40 dB.
NASA is actively seeking opportunities to perform
technology demonstrations from deep-space early
next decade so that the risk of implementing deep-
space optical communications is retired. Figure 6
shows a conceptual architecture for a planned deep-
space optical communications demonstration. The
concept relies on the use of existing ground assets
for an initial demonstration.
Figure 6 Conceptual architecture for a deep-space
optical communications demonstration.
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A Ground Laser Transmitter (GLT) and Ground
Laser Receiver (GLR) located in the Southern
California utilizing the existing Optical
Communication Telescope Laboratory (OCTL) and
the Hale telescope are planned. The GLT will
transmit a 1064 nm high power beacon laser that
can deliver an irradiance of a few picowatts per
square meter to a deep-space optical
communication Flight Laser Transceiver (FLT).
The FLT will use the beacon signal to actively
point a 1550 nm downlink beam back to the GLR.
Key technologies listed below will be required to
demonstrate the capability described:
• Isolation and Pointing Assembly (IPA) for
operating in the presence of spacecraft
vibrational disturbance
• Photon-counting camera for the FLT to
enable acquisition/tracking and uplink with
a dim laser beacon
• High peak-to-average power laser
transmitter for photon-efficient
communications
• Photon-counting ground detectors that can
be integrated with large aperture diameter
ground collecting apertures (telescopes) for
detecting the faint downlink signal from
deep-space.
These technologies are currently being matured and
integrated at JPL in order to perform and advanced
demonstration on the ground. This will prove
readiness for developing a FLT that can be hosted
by a future NASA mission. At the time of writing
this report NASA’s next Discovery mission
selected from the 2014 Announcement of
Opportunity is a strong candidate for hosting a
deep-space optical communication demonstration.
IV. Optical Communications Interoperability
Standards for Near Earth and Deep Space
NASA is interested in the development of
worldwide optical communications standards to
support interoperability between optical systems.
With that in mind, NASA has been working within
the International Operations Advisory Group
(IOAG) and the Consultative Committee for Space
Data Systems (CCSDS).
The IOAG is an organization made up of
international space agencies that provides a forum
for identifying common needs, coordinating space
communications policy, high-level procedures,
technical interfaces, and other matters related to
interoperability and space communications. The
IOAG considers the future requirements and trends
in spacecraft communications needs and assigns
 2015 IEEE International Conference on Space Optical Systems and Applications (ICSOS)
priorities for the development of cross support
standards. The IOAG commissioned a study in
2010 on the business case for establishing cross
support standards for optical communications. The
study group was named the Optical Link Study
Group (OLSG) and it was co-chaired by NASA
and ESA [8].
The OLSG had six member agencies and assessed
the business case by defining mission scenarios,
developing a credible operational concept for each
scenario, and examining the corresponding space
communication system designs, estimated costs,
and their expected performance. Some of the
scenarios that the OLSG looked at were Earth relay
satellites, Low Earth Orbit (LEO) direct-to-ground,
lunar direct-to-Earth, and deep space optical direct
to Earth communications. The OLSG reached the
conclusion that there was indeed a business case
for establishing optical communications standards.
The development of such standards was then tasked
to be accomplished by the CCSDS [9].
The CCSDS has been a huge success in the radio
frequency (RF) environment and today it is a multi-
national forum for the development of
communications and data systems standards for
spaceflight comprised of the world’s major space
agencies and observer agencies. The stated goal of
the CCSDS is to enhance governmental and
commercial interoperability and cross-support,
while also reducing risk, development time and
project costs. Consensus has to be reached by the
member agencies before a CCSDS standard can be
published.
Since its founding CCSDS has developed standards
recommendations, which have become ISO
standards, for space link communications and for
associated ground data systems. These standards
enable interoperability and cross support among the
international space agencies. There are over 130
active CCSDS publications to date.
Agency A Agency B
Spacecraft Spacecraft
Agency A Antenna Agency B Antenna
Figure 6: Cross Support
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NASA is specifically interested in developing
recommended standards for:
• High Data Rate Near Earth applications
• High Photon Efficiency Deep Space
applications
• Low Complexity (and thus low cost) Near
Earth applications
• Real-Time Weather and Atmospheric
Characterization
Specifically, NASA is interested in interoperable
optical communications standards to support Earth
relay and deep space communications.
Earth relay satellites are expensive to develop,
build, and operate. Sharing of an Earth relay
satellite will reduce the cost of providing
worldwide coverage for optical inter-satellite
communication links. Sharing of Earth relay
satellites should also provide higher availability by
making more resources available to a specific
spacecraft.
Optical ground stations to support deep space
direct-to-Earth links are expected to be large,
relatively expensive ground stations. This is
especially true for stations supporting very high
data rates from Mars and beyond. The effective
aperture size will be on the order of 5 to 10 meters
to support high rate optical signals from Mars and
even larger for signals from farther out in the solar
system. Just as in the Near Earth application case,
the sharing of deep space optical ground stations
will save cost and increase availability. This will
help to make future deep space optical
communications a reality as the sharing of
infrastructure will lower the cost for any single
space agency.
Optical communications through the Earth
atmosphere from either an Earth relay satellite or
directly from a user spacecraft is nearly impossible
in the presence of most types of clouds. Therefore,
the optical communication system solution for a
particular mission has to utilize optical ground
stations that are geographically diverse, such that
there is a high probability of a cloud-free line of
site (CFLOS) to a ground station from a spacecraft
at any given point in time. Sharing ground stations
around the world help to increase the probability of
getting the data to the ground within the time
period required [10]
NASA is working within the official CCSDS
Optical Communications Working Group to
develop world-wide recommended standards for
space optical communications.
NASA plans on developing a CCSDS Orange Book
on High Data Rate optical communications based
 2015 IEEE International Conference on Space Optical Systems and Applications (ICSOS)
on its Laser Communications Relay Demonstration
work. CCSDS Orange Books document
experimental work; they are normative, but
generally cover very new technology that does not
yet have consensus of enough member agencies to
standardize. The proposed High Data Rate
recommendation currently being developed by
NASA aims to define signaling for future optical
relay systems, allowing users to make use of LCRD
and future optical relays for high-data-rate,
continuously-available data relay services. The
proposed recommendation incorporates many of
the features of the LCRD waveform, including:
multi-rate differential phase shift keying
modulation; high-efficiency, capacity-approaching,
edge-to-edge forward error correction coding [2];
and in-band physical-layer communications for
functions such as switching, channel state
monitoring, and physical-layer performance
optimization.
NASA has proposed two draft recommended
standards relating to high-photon-efficiency optical
communications suitable for deep space
applications. NASA would like to see the material
accepted and published as CCSDS Blue Books.
CCSDS Blue Books are completed recommended
standards that become International Standards
Organization (ISO) standards. They are normative,
sufficiently detailed, and pre-tested so they can be
used to directly and independently implement
interoperable systems
The first draft recommended standard provides the
optical synchronization, coding, and modulation
specification for the downlink and uplink signals.
The proposed downlink waveform uses serially-
concatenated convolutionally-coded pulse position
modulation (SCPPM), with options for 4-ary
through 256-ary PPM. The proposed uplink uses
low-density parity-check (LDPC) coded 2-PPM.
The physical layer is described in a second draft
recommended standard, which specifies a 1550 nm
wavelength for the downlink and 1060-1080 nm for
the uplink.
NASA is also working closely with the
international community to develop a CCSDS
Green Book for Real-Time Weather and
Atmospheric Characterization Data. CCSDS
Green Books are informational reports; these are
not normative and provide foundational
information for BlueBooks, describing their
applicability, overall architecture, concept of
operations, etc. A CCSDS Green Book for Real-
Time Weather and Atmospheric Characterization
Data will define the physical quantities to be
measured at existing and potential optical ground
station sites in support of space-to-Earth links
CFLOS (Cloud Free Line of Sight) and link budget
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caculations. The book will include material
showing how to produce and use long term weather
and atmospheric statistics and how to take real-time
measurements. The book will also touch on
performing predictive weather in support of optical
communications handovers.
V. Conclusion
Optical Communications is an important
communications technology for future space
missions. It has the potential of providing user data
rates well in excess of what is possible with today’s
RF technology; furthermore, the user burden in
terms of mass, power, and volume should be less
even for data rates comparable to today’s RF
systems. While the capacity of current and near-
term RF communications technology is still
increasing, it is eventually limited by bandwidth
allocation restrictions, power requirements, flight
terminal antenna size, and weight limitations.
NASA believes that a future space communications
network should offer both RF and optical
communication services. RF can be reserved for
those cases where high availability and thus low
latency is absolutely required, since optical
communications through the atmosphere for space-
to-Earth links will always be impacted by clouds.
For space-to-Earth links, optical communications
can be reserved for scenarios in which a potential
delay in reception is not a problem; in space-to-
space links, optical communications can provide
both high data rates and high availability. NASA is
developing the needed technologies for both near
Earth and deep space optical communications.
To facilitate the ability to interoperate, especially
with organizations external to NASA, a set of
standards for space optical communications needs
to be developed. An international standard will
allow optical communications terminals built by
one agency to use the infrastructure of another
country’s space agency. This is the evolutionary
next step to today’s international RF cross support.
It is definitely an exciting time to be working in
this critical technology area.
Acknowledgments
The work described in this paper was carried out at
NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC; NASA’s
Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt,
Maryland; Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s
Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, Massachusetts;
and at the California Institute of Technology’s Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California,
under contract with NASA. Funding was provided
 2015 IEEE International Conference on Space Optical Systems and Applications (ICSOS)

by the Space Technology Mission Directorate and Jean-Marc Soula CNES ; Philip Liebrecht
the Space Communications and Navigation NASA; Martin Pilgram DLR ; Jon Walker
Program within the Human Exploration and NASA; James Costrell NASA (Retired) ;
Operations Directorate at NASA. Gian-Paolo Calzolari ESA ; Wolfgang Hell
ESA
9. Interagency Operations Advisory Group,
“Optical Link Study Group Final Report,”
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International Conference on Space Optical Systems

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