Lunar Inter-Spacecraft Optical Communicator

Based on our successful Phase 1 studies, we are proposing the construction and fully testing of an inter-spacecraft omnidirectional optical communicator (ISOC) that will provide fast connectivity and navigation information to small spacecraft forming a swarm or a constellation in cislunar space. The ISOC proposed for cislunar applications operates at 1550 nm, employs a dodecahedron body holding 6 optical telescopes and 20 external arrays of detectors for angle-of-arrival determination. The proposed ISOC will provide full sky (4pi; steradian) coverage and gigabit connectivity among smallsats forming a swarm or constellation. It will also provide continuous positional information among these spacecraft including bearing, elevation, and range. We also expect the ISOC to provide fast low-latency connectivity to assets on the surface of the moon such as landers, rovers, instruments, and astronauts. During Phase 2 we propose to build and fully-test a lunar ISOC including all its transceivers, optics and processing units. We will also perform outdoor testing of the resulting ISOC to verify its key capabilities. We believe the ISOC, once fully developed, will provide commercial, high data rate connectivity to future scientific, military, and commercial missions around cislunar space and beyond.