EFAL: EDRS Feeder Link from Antarctic Latitudes—System Architecture and Operations Concept

• Main Authors: Bobrovskyi, Sergei, Sellmaier, Florian, Huber, Felix, Barrios, Ricardo, Giggenbach, Dirk, Moll, Florian
• Other Authors: Cruzen, Craig, Schmidhuber, Michael, Dubon, Lydia
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics 2015
• Subjects: Controlling und Akquisition RB; Leitungsbereich RB; Satellitennetze; Antarctic; Arctic; Antarc*
• Online Access: https://elib.dlr.de/99433/; https://elib.dlr.de/99433/1/2015-Bobrovskyi_EFAL-AIAA_CHA_reprint.pdf; http://arc.aiaa.org/doi/abs/10.2514/5.9781624101991.0163.0184

The goal of near real-time delivery of data from spacecraft in polar low Earth orbits to the customers can be achieved by utilization of Arctic and Antarctic hubs in a Ground Station Network. Additionally, the commanding of the satellites from these hubs can provide novel opportunities for spacecraft operations. The challenge of high-rate data repatriation from such remote sites can be met by means of laser communications from ground to geostationary satellites. We present system architecture and operations concept for a setup employing the European Data Relay System (EDRS) for data uplinks from an Antarctic ground station taking into account the impact of local atmospheric conditions.