Prospects for Improvement of Interplanetary Laser Communication Data Rates by 30 dB

NASA's Mars laser communications demonstration (MLCD) project (since discontinued) was designed to achieve data rates greater than 1 Mb/s from the farthest Mars range and greater than 30 Mb/s from the nearest Mars range. We present here pathways whereby ongoing optical technology advances should allow 30 dB of increased data rates relative to MLCD by 2020. In other words, technical advances should soon allow the return of deep-space data at rates of 1 Gb/s from the maximum Mars range, 100 Mb/s from Jupiter distances, and 10 Mb/s from Uranus, all many orders of magnitude greater than present radio-frequency capabilities. The potential for realizing the stated capability with less than a three times increase in dc power required from the spacecraft and no increase in payload mass is discussed.

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