Deep space science downlinks via optical communication

By the year 2025 the European Space Agency plans to be operating a number of currently studied or planned scientific missions which will place satellites in orbits around the Moon, the Earth-Sun Lagrange points, and Mars and Jupiter. Initial studies are underway to determine the feasibility of providing optical communications systems for dedicated science data channels with the objective to improve upon the present workhorse radio frequency link bandwidths by an order of magnitude within similar mass, power, and size limitations. The target is to provide 100 Mbps channel bandwidth from a distance of 1 AU with a global communication link availability of >; 95%.