Since launch in May 2022, NASA’s TeraByte Infrared Delivery (TBIRD) program has successfully demonstrated 100-Gbps and 200-Gbps laser communication downlinks from a 6U CubeSat in low-Earth orbit to a ground station. The TBIRD system operates during 5-minute passes over the ground station and has demonstrated an error-free downlink transfer of > 1 Terabyte (TB) in a single pass. This paper presents an overview of the architecture, link operations, and system performance results to date.
On-Orbit Demonstration of 200-Gbps Laser Communication Downlink from the Tbird Cubesat
SPIE Photonics West ; 2023 ; San Francisco, CA, US
Conference paper
No indication
English