Plan for On-Orbit Demonstration of the Deployable Optical Receiver Array

The Deployable Optical Receiver Aperture (DORA) mission will demonstrate a novel infrared laser communication terminal for small satellites. The terminal uses a widefield receiver to reduce pointing requirements. We report the development of a low-cost 3U cubesat that will test the terminal in low-Earth orbit, and the planned concept of operations for the testing. The satellite design addresses the payload pointing requirement of 5° and power draw of up to 8 W with a combination of commercial and open source subsystems. On-orbit testing will be conducted between the cubesat terminal and a specially-designed ground terminal derived from the flight system. Development of the DORA cubesat and terminal are supported by NASA's Space Technology Program (STP).