Laser beam acquisition and tracking system for ETS-VI laser communication equipment

The configuration of the acquisition and tracking system of the laser communication system aboard the Japanese Engineering Test Satellite VI (ETS-VI) is described, and the control loop design of the coarse and fine loops are examined. Simulations performed to evaluate the dynamic error for each loop, which showed that the dynamic error satisfies the error budget, are described. The tracking accuracy of each loop was measured with a breadboard model and the resulting data were found to meet the error budget.