NASA's Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD) Extended Experiment Program: Recent Results

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD) project has been an experimental program, operating since June 2022. The LCRD geosynchronous payload includes two laser communications terminals, and an RF communications link provided by the host satellite, STPSat-6. The terminals are interconnected via an onboard electronic switch. The payload can relay information between any of three ground stations. Optical ground stations are located in California and Hawai’i, and an RF ground station is located in New Mexico.
Experiments to date have included collection of telemetry characterizing the performance of laser communications links, including the impacts of the daily and seasonal variation of optical turbulence, while systematically varying link parameters such as data rate, uplink/downlink transmit power levels and channel interleaver depth. Other activities have included optical relay links connecting the International Space Station with ground terminals, use of an optical link to command and telemeter the LCRD payload instead of a traditional RF link, emulation of user data service scenarios, and characterization of optical space telescope (OST) pointing performance. This paper provides an overview of the experiment program, highlights of recent experiments, and a short description of future activities.
LCRD is a joint project among NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), the California Institute of Technology Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory (MIT LL).