Since launch in May 2022, NASA's TeraByte Infrared Delivery (TBIRD) program has successfully demonstrated 100-Gbps and 200-Gbps laser communication downlinks from a 6U CubeSat in low-Earth orbit to a ground station. The TBIRD system operates during 5-minute passes over the ground station and has demonstrated an error-free downlink transfer of > 1 Terabyte (TB) in a single pass. This paper presents an overview of the architecture, link operations, and system performance results to date.
On-orbit demonstration of 200-Gbps laser communication downlink from the TBIRD CubeSat
Free-Space Laser Communications XXXV ; 2023 ; San Francisco,California,United States
Proc. SPIE ; 12413
2023-03-15
Conference paper
Electronic Resource
English