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The new revolution technology is coming to satellite communication.

30 January 2016 Eutelsat 9B was launched. It was the first satellite equiped with EDRS (European Data Relay System). Mediasat being curios about new technology went to the office of designer of the EDRS Paylaod – Tesat company, located in a small German town of Backnang. Matthias Motzigemba Head of Laser Products made an excursion and explained the details of the Lasercommunication technology which is still hardly known in the world.

Tesat has developed with the support of German Space Agency a Laser Communication Terminal (LCT), that support high data rate relay links between low earth orbiting (LEO) and geostationary satellites (GEO). It provides a possibility to transfer data up to 45 000 km of 1.8 Gbit/sec. These LCTs have been selected to be the backbone of the EDRS. Program providing LEO-GEO data relay services.

Matthias Motzigemba: “Now you have Near Real Time Servicewith high data rate in very robust quality- That makes the difference! LEO make a picture and sent it to GEO, then the GEO satellite sent it to the Earth in RF. Laser is very good in Vacuum, but it is not the best choice to transmit in atmosphere because it could be blocked by clouds. For the protection of your TV signal you could use the high data rate and jamming free optical technology in your feederlinkThe use of Laser technology can be compared with the use of fiber instead of copper”.

The EO-Teleport could be a foreign service with use of terrestrial unprotected networks.
Optical Relay Service (LEO to GEO and GEO to Ground transmisson).
The ground station can be situated in the own country within the line of sight to GEO.
S/C – This means souvereignity of your information asset.

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The technology was motivated by growing demand for data transmission capacity of civil and military earth observation satellites, (HALE) missions. The idea of EDRS came from European comission. They already have been developing Sentinel fleet, Copernicus programme. The next step are the intersatellites links.

Eutelsat offered space on 9B for a hosted payload. After seven years of development from first to second generation of the LCT, the LCT on Alphasat was launched in July 2013. Sentinel-1A LCT was successfully integrated in December 2013. In April 2014 Sentinel 1A was launched and commissioned. In November 2014 there was a live demonstration operated by ESA and Tesat to send a radar image from Sentinel-1A via Alphasat over 41,700 km to the ground station in near real time.

“Technically there is no difference between Laser Communications equipment on Alphsat and on Eutelsat 9B. Alphasat is a technical demonstration project but EDRS on Eutelsat 9 B – is a commercial service offered by Airbus Defense and Space. Normally Earth observation satellite have 10 minutes to contact a ground station and 90 Minutes turn around the Earth. It means you only use 10% of your space asset and in case of emergency, when it is a disaster it’s too much time without contacting your earth observation mission and only waiting. Now while observing for example vessel you will see that something is wrong within 15 minutes” – Matthias Motzigemba says.

Key element of the product line is the LCT-135 (135 mm telescope beam diameter) for GEO/LEO intersatellite links. As its predecessor, the LCT-125, it combines in one single unit all the optical, mechanical and electrical subunits of the terminal, like power distribution, on-board processor, tracking and acquisition modules and data handling system. Data of spacecraft AOCS sensors can easily be provided to the LCT via a standard interface box, the Laser Interface Adaption Unit (LIAU).

LCT parameters are:

  • Range: 45,000 km
  • Weight: 53 kg
  • Data Rate (full duplex): for EDRS 1.8Gbit/sec, for other missions 5.65 Gbit/sec
  • Transmit Power:2.2W
  • Power Consumption:160W max.
  • Dimensions: 0.6 x 0.6 x 0.7m

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