Airbus Defence and Space high speed cross atmospheric optical comms program

Airbus has initiated in 2018 a program, with the support of CNES and ESA, to develop terabits per second optical feeder links for its future GEO telecommunication satellites. This program includes a flight demo called TELEO hosted on a commercial satellite BADR-8 launched in May 2023 and recently arrived to its final GEO orbit. TELEO will enable in particular In Orbit Testing of the optical uplink and mitigation technics for error free telecom links. In parallel to this demo which will test the critical technologies for the future laser terminals product line, the development of the final product has started in 2021 with the objective to be “ready to bid” for Terabits class ground to GEO links in 2024. The presentation will give an overview of this program, its status and first results as well as the targeted performances and applications for this new technology.