Acquisition and tracking strategies of the OPTEL 25 GEO terminal

Contraves Space is developing the OPTEL family of laser communication terminals for satellite communications. Near term market opportunities have identified the OPTEL 25 GEO terminal as the first member of the OPTEL family for commercial applications. These applications are for medium-range crosslink applications between geostationary telecommunication satellites having transparent payloads. With the OPTEL 25 GEO, an analog passband of nominally 500 MHz - usually comprising several transponder channels - can be transmitted across a distance of typically 25,000 km.