High Power (50W), 1.5um WDM Fiber Laser Transmitter with Effective FWM Mitigation

Fibertek proposes to develop a TRL 6 spaceflight prototype multi-wavelength seed laser module that would scale deep space data rates to 1-2 Gbps. The seed laser is capable of supporting WDM across all CCSDS PPM pulse formats. These enhancements increase the data capacity scaling by gt;10x over the current state of the art high power WDM transmitter enabling the next generation of high speed DSOC links. In addition, the seed laser module can also be operated using On-Off keying at much higher data rates then PPM. With minor adjustment at gt;gt; 100 Gbps using coherent coms can be achieved as well as DPSK waveforms.NASArsquo;s Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) roadmap for 2025 and beyond shows the need for optical links for Earth, lunar, inter-planetary, and relay networks requiring 10-100x higher data rates than current state-of-the-art space-based optical communications systems. Future laser communications system requirements include data rates gt;1 Gbps downlink from planetary bodies, and gt;100 Gbps low-geosynchronous earth orbit (LEO-GEO) networks. To support high-data-rate communications for long-range GEO and inter-planetary missions, a new class of laser communications transmitter is required with high average power (gt;20 W), high efficiency (gt;20%), and high peak power (gt;1 kW)mdash;and capable of 16-ary and 128-ary pulse position modulation (PPM) formats. Wavelength-division multiplexed (WDM) systems must also have output power that is spectrally flat with minimal cross-talk.