The Lunar Laser Communications Demonstration Project undertaken by MIT Lincoln Laboratory and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center will demonstrate high-rate laser communications from lunar orbit to the Earth. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is developing a backup ground station supporting a data rate of 39 Mbps that is based on a non-real-time software post-processing receiver architecture. This approach entails processing sample-rate-limited data without feedback in the presence high uncertainty in downlink clock characteristics under low signal flux conditions. In this paper we present a receiver concept that addresses these challenges with descriptions of the photodetector assembly, sample acquisition and recording platform, and signal processing approach. End-to-end coded simulation and laboratory data analysis results are presented that validate the receiver conceptual design.

Date Published: 19 March 2013
PDF: 9 pages
Proc. SPIE 8610, Free-Space Laser Communication and Atmospheric Propagation XXV, 86100Q (19 March 2013); doi: 10.1117/12.2005190

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8610:
Free-Space Laser Communication and Atmospheric Propagation XXV
Hamid Hemmati; Don M. Boroson, Editor(s)