Abstract

The first laser communication experiment between a satellite and a ground station has been performed by Communications Research Laboratory (CRL) using Engineering Test Satellite VI (ETS-VI). The satellite was lunched into high-elliptical orbit on August 28, 1994 and the laser communication experiment was performed using the link to a ground station as the counterpart of the link to another satellite, when the satellite was visible from the ground station and the satellite attitude was maintained to the ground station. A laser diode with a wavelength of 0.83 µm is used for downlink transmission, and an argon ion laser with a wavelength of 0.5145 µm is used for up-link transmission. The main optical ground station is located at the CRL site in Tokyo. Figure 1 shows the configuration of the laser communication experiment using ETS-VI.

© 1995 IEEE