EFAL: EDRS Feeder Link from Antarctic Latitudes - Preliminary Results of Site Investigations, Availability, and System Requirements

• Main Authors: Giggenbach, Dirk, Barrios, Ricardo, Moll, Florian, Mata Calvo, Ramon, Bobrovskyi, Sergei, Huber, Felix, Johnson-Amin, Nighat F.D., Heine, Frank, Gregory, Mark
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: German
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: Satellitennetze; Antarc*; Antarctic; Arctic
• Online Access: https://elib.dlr.de/89312/; https://elib.dlr.de/89312/1/__192.168.178.179_NAS-Share_OP_Projects_publications_All_2014-Giggenbach-CNF-ICSOS-EFAL_results_Paper_Giggenbach_2014_EFAL-results_ICSOS2014.pdf

Laser communications from ground to geostationary satellites can enable high-rate data repatriation from remote ground station sites. When employing Arctic or Antarctic ground hubs, the low link elevations impose a major challenge due to the strong atmospheric index-of-refraction turbulence impact and increased attenuation. The usability of the European Data Relays System (EDRS) for data uplinks from an Antarctic ground station has been analyzed in terms of cloud-availability and feasibility in terms of atmospheric turbulence. For model-verification, an on-site wavefront measurement campaign has been carried out. This scenario also serves as worst test-case for future optical GEO-feeder links.