Description
The objective of the activity is to design, develop and test an engineering model (EM) of a Coarse Pointing Mechanism (CPM) featuring 250 mm free optical aperture diameter and pointing/tracking capabilities compatible with GEO-LEO, GEO-MEO, GEO-GEO, GEO-Moon, andGEO-ground optical links.Targeted Improvements:Increasing the apertures of space based optical communication systems from 135mm(EDRS) to 250mm improves the link budget by >10dB (i.e. 10x data rate). Flexible pointing capability allows re-using the same mechanism for different link scenarios (GEO-LEO, GEO-MEO, GEO-GEO and GEO-ground)Description:Laser Communication Terminals (LCT) for medium/long distance Optical inter-satellite links (OISL) and optical ground-space links (OSGL) are currently targeting data rates up to 10 Gbps with apertures up to 135 mm. There is an ongoing telescope development by ADS (France) called TOP-M for optical communication terminals with 250 mm aperture, but its coarse pointing mechanism is only compatible with GEO to GND and for GEO to LEO optical links. The development of a coarse pointing mechanism (CPM) with 250 mm aperture diameter (LCT250) and pointing/tracking capabilities compatible with GEO-LEO, GEO-MEO, GEO-GEO, GEO-Moon, and GEO-ground optical links, would allow to have a versatile LCT like theEDRS LCT (135mm) but with a larger aperture (250mm) allowing flexibility in spacecraft accommodation and to increase data rates by >x10 or reduce the transmitted optical power requirements by >x10. The key element of such LCT250 is the Coarse PointingMechanism (CPM250). 1. There is currently no Coarse Pointing Mechanism capable of data rates Tbps and compatible with multiple OISL/OGSL scenarios (GEO-LEO, GEO-MEO, GEO-GEO, GEO-Moon, and GEO-ground). The targeted market is any type of OISL and OGSL required in future space Optical Transport Networks. 2. There is already heritage (TRL9) of Coarse Pointing Mechanism with 250mm but limited to GEO-LEO and GEO-GND scenarios, or Coarse Pointing Mechanism capable of GEO-LEO, GEO-MEO, GEO-GEO and GEO-ground but limited to 135 mm aperture. 3. This activity is to leverage the concept of a CPM250 up to TRL5 (i.e. EM) 4. The output is an engineering model (EM) of a Coarse Pointing Mechanism featuring 250 mm aperture diameter (CPM250) and pointing/tracking capabilities compatible with multiple OISL/OGSL scenarios. The CPM250 comprises all the optical, mechanical and electrical elements and it is the key element of the Laser Communication Terminal with 250 mm aperture diameter (LCT250, which is not part of this activity) This activity covers the following tasks: -state-of-the-art of pointing/tracking mechanisms of relevance for aperture diameter >250mm and flexible pointing capabilities - design trade-offs for a CPM250 and selection of the baseline concept (considering mass, power consumption, volume, etc.) -optical, mechanical and electrical detailed design of the CPM250 supported by early breadboarding and testing of critical parts - manufacturing, assembly, integration and test of the CPM250 in laboratory conditions - technology roadmap and programmatic up to FM