Characterization of atmospherics in Hawaii for free space optical communications

Radio Frequency (RF) signals have been relied on exclusively and successfully to communicate with spacecraft since satellite communications began nearly 60 years ago. However, missions now demand higher data rates to meet their data collection requirements. For example, NASA's Lunar Laser Communications Demonstration (LLCD) successfully demonstrated high data rate communications links to and from the LADEE satellite orbiting the moon during the Fall of 2013. As a next step, the Laser Communication Relay Demonstration (LCRD) will build upon the experience gained from LLCD and perform multi-year testing of Free-Space Optical Communications (FSOC) from geosynchronous orbit. Planning for these missions has included quantifying the impacts of the atmosphere on the data links, and developing operational concepts for mitigating transmission losses due to clouds, turbulence, and aerosols. This paper discusses the atmospherics over the Hawaiian Islands as they already include astronomical observing and therefore may be quite favorable.