Radiation Hardened Optical Matrix Switch

The phase I proposal showed a clear path to fielding a hardened optical switch array by leveraging advances made in the commercial oprical switch array marketplace. The selected vendors and Ultra Comm have put together a conservative, low-risk plan to ruggedize, miniaturize and harden an optical swtich array for space applications BENEFIT: Military satellite communications message traffic has steadily increased and future growth may dramatically accelerate as the full potential of battlefield information is realized. As message traffic grows to encompass high capacity inter-satellite optical communications links, the efficiency with which message traffic is routed between crosslinks and downlinks becomes increasingly important in maintaining payload size, weight and power within lift capabilities. Intra-satellite fiber-optic networking is developing as a solution for this high data rate low SWaP requirement. A hardened optical switch along with hardened transceivers for the Optical to Electrical O-E) and Electrical to Optical (E-O) are required as infrastructure for this optical hardened space network.