Friday, January 19, 2007
Inter-planetary Laser Beam Communications
K.E. Wilson
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
The continued development of high resolution sensors drives the bandwidth requirements for space communications. To meet these increasing demands, carrier frequencies in the NASA's space exploration program have migrated from S-Band, to X- Band, and now to Ka-Band. Yet, with visions of lunar and Martian exploration, even higher bandwidth links will be required to support humans at these distant locales. Optical communications offers high bandwidth links in communications packages smaller in size, lower in mass and power consumption than equivalent data rate RF systems. This talk will discuss the benefits of optical communications to deep space exploration, the challenges of the technology and strategies to mitigate them. Special focus will be on JPL's optical communications development over the past two decades.
Refreshments at 4:00 PM. Seminar begins at 4:10 PM.
Building 8 (Science Bldg.) - Room 241
For further information, please call (909) 869-4014
