2 ms·

German aerospace agency DLR sent a laser terminal for satellite to ground communication on the same ride-share -> https://www.dlr.de/kn/desktopdefault.aspx/tabi

• namibj 6y ago
  Thanks for mentioning. I dug up the paper with the technical details. I did not find anything suggesting it'd be used productively for the satellite if it manages to deliver. Do you have anything about that you can tell/link? I'd be curious what the initial design weight was, before the thermal expansion problem that caused the aluminium block. As for the data rate, it seems a mechanically simplistic fold-out mirror (released during deploy, say with a current pulse into a shape-memory-alloy torsion spring to delay the unfolding until after the ejection, or just a simple friction break and a normal torsion spring) could significantly decrease the beam width when made from e.g. zerodur and fabricated as an offset parabolic dish. Slightly modifying the refractive collimating optics of the current design should make that approach possible. I'd expect vibration in space to be a negligible issue, so an edge-mounted mirror should be stiff enough. https://elib.dlr.de/135960/ https://elib.dlr.de/135960/ https://elib.dlr.de/135960/1/1150604.pdf https://elib.dlr.de/135960/1/1150604.pdf