An overview of NASA’s latest efforts in optical communications

This paper provides an overview of NASA's latest efforts in developing and deploying optical communications. It focuses on NASA's flagship Near Earth effort, the Laser Communications Relay Demonstration Project (LCRD), a joint project among NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology (JPL), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory (MIT/LL). LCRD will provide at least two years of bi-directional optical communications at user data rates of up to 1.244 Gbps in an operational environment. This paper will provide an update on the project. This paper will also touch on NASA's efforts for a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) space optical terminal, developments for future deep space optical systems, and address NASA's latest effort in international standardization.