Ground station for terabyte infrared delivery (TBIRD)

Sabino Piazzolla; William T. Roberts; Joseph Kovalik; Michael Peng; Vachik Garkanian; Christine Chen; William Buehlman; Mark Brewer; Gerardo Ortiz; Kittrin Matthews; Angel Velasco; Abhijit Biswas

doi:10.1117/12.2655123

15 March 2023 Ground station for terabyte infrared delivery (TBIRD)

Sabino Piazzolla, William T. Roberts, Joseph Kovalik, Michael Peng, Vachik Garkanian, Christine Chen, William Buehlman, Mark Brewer, Gerardo Ortiz, Kittrin Matthews, Angel Velasco, Abhijit Biswas

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 12413, Free-Space Laser Communications XXXV; 1241311 (2023) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2655123
Event: SPIE LASE, 2023, San Francisco, California, United States

Abstract

The Terabyte Infrared Delivery (TBIRD) technology demonstration commenced operations in June 2022 following the spacecraft launch in late May 2022. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Optical Communications Telescope Laboratory (OCTL), 1-meter diameter telescope was instrumented to serve as the ground station for TBIRD. The instrumentation was a combination of lasers and modem electronics supplied by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory (MITLL) along with optics, sensors, and an existing adaptive optics (AO) system. The AO was embedded in an existing Optical Ground Station (OGS-1) setup supporting NASA’s Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD). The transmitting and receiving optics for TBIRD were “threaded” around the OGS-1 optics without breaking configuration, and facilitated easy switching between LCRD and TBIRD operations with a few motorized actuators. In this paper we describe (i) the design and deployment of the ground station; (ii) the concept of operations and (iii) demonstration results.

Conference Presentation

Citation Download Citation

Sabino Piazzolla, William T. Roberts, Joseph Kovalik, Michael Peng, Vachik Garkanian, Christine Chen, William Buehlman, Mark Brewer, Gerardo Ortiz, Kittrin Matthews, Angel Velasco, and Abhijit Biswas "Ground station for terabyte infrared delivery (TBIRD)", Proc. SPIE 12413, Free-Space Laser Communications XXXV, 1241311 (15 March 2023); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2655123

ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE

INSTITUTIONAL
Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.

SELECT YOUR INSTITUTION

PERSONAL
Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.

PERSONAL SIGN IN

No SPIE Account? Create one

PURCHASE THIS CONTENT

SUBSCRIBE TO DIGITAL LIBRARY

50 downloads per 1-year subscription

Members: $195

Non-members: $335 ADD TO CART

25 downloads per 1 - year subscription

Members: $145

Non-members: $250 ADD TO CART

PURCHASE SINGLE ARTICLE

Includes PDF, HTML & Video, when available