Photonic Wireless Terahertz Wave System for Space Exploration

NASA planetary missions involve communications between a central orbiter and a number of lander or daughter ships. Given this scenario, large bandwidth data links with compact topologies are required. In this investigation, a photonic-based-transmission link is examined in the extremely high frequency (EHF) regime to scale wireless bandwidth communications given the low power constraints of a system in space. This novel multi-wavelength photonic wireless terahertz wave system incorporates RF transmission up to several hundred GHz and utilizes state-of-the-art low noise receivers for detection.