The European Optical Nucleus Network

• Main Authors: Krynitz, Martin, Heese, Clemens, Knopp, Marcus Thomas, Schulz, Klaus-Jürgen, Henniger, Hennes
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: 2021
• Subjects: Raumflugbetrieb und Astronautentraining; Tromsø
• Online Access: https://elib.dlr.de/144886/; https://elib.dlr.de/144886/1/SpaceOps2021_Nucleus_Network%202021%208x1477.pdf; https://spaceops.iafastro.directory/a/proceedings/SpaceOps-2021/SpaceOps-2021/8/presentations/SpaceOps-2021,8,x1477.show.pptx

As terrestrial data transmission capacity has been growing quickly, spacecraft to Earth data-rates also need to increase to enable new applications. While K-band (26 GHz) payload data links become a commodity offering multiple Gbps data rates for future Earth Observation missions from Low Earth Orbit, e.g. for the Copernicus program, increasingly stakeholders are looking into optical solutions for spacecraft to ground data links with the expectation of 10 Gbps and multiples thereof. However, the development of optical communications from space to ground has been slow due to the lack of an operational and reliable ground segment that can receive data at multiple locations, mitigating the link blockage by clouds, integrate it in the cloud and make it available to the end user in near real-time. All this within a competitive cost level compared to traditional radio frequency (RF) services. The European Optical Nucleus Network is an initiative between Space Agencies and industry to over-come the lack of availability of an optical ground station network. This is achieved by creating a multi-site, multi-mission network which supports common CCSDS standards and space-terminal implementations available to spacecraft operators with optical communication systems onboard. The idea is that participating parties contribute operations time on self-funded optical ground stations to an integrated ground station network that is made available to the space community as a service. The initial European Optical Nucleus Network consists of optical ground stations from ESA-OPS on Tenerife (Canary Islands), DLR-GSOC in Almeria (Spain) and KSAT in Nemea (Greece). These will be connected to the KSAT network operations center (NOC) in Tromsø that also controls KSAT’s 200 RF-antennas on 22 sites around the globe. From a user perspective this allows a single point of contact and frees the user from managing multiple sites and integrating these through different interfaces. The European Optical Nucleus Network will be the first operational ...