Expanded laser communications demonstrations with OICETS and ground stations

The restarted OICETS-ground laser communications experiments are introduced. The events are sequentially summarized from the launch of OICETS to the end-of-life, where the reopened experiments started from October 2008. In the period, the satellite-ground laser communications campaign with the four optical ground stations of DLR, ESA, JPL and NICT are conducted from April 2009 to September 2009. The open pointing characteristics of OICETS measured in those trials show that the performance remains almost the same as before in 2006. The average rate of the link establishments through the whole period is about 0.6 due to the weather conditions. The viewable periods of OICETS from the four ground stations are analyzed as an example. The result indicates that the satellite could be accessible once an hour from at least one of the four ground stations, which implies a possibility of a LEO satellite-ground quasi-continuous connection.