Real Time Optical Receiver

Develop and demonstrate a real-time optical photon counting receiver for deep-space optical ground stations. Mature ground station optical communications technology for high-bandwidth deep space communications. The Real Time Optical Receiver (RealTOR) project at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, is using commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) technologies to develop a portable, scalable, and low-cost solution for building optical communications ground receivers. Optical communications, also known as laser communications, uses infrared light rather than radio waves to encode and transmit information to and from Earth.

Goals:

• Deliver a demonstrated design for an optical receiver, leveraging Commercially Off the Shelf (COTS) components where possible, to SCaN no later than 6 months after the completion of the Artemis II mission.

This technology will provide missions with increased data rates, enabling the transfer of 10 to 100 times more data transmitted back to Earth than current radio frequency systems used by NASA. In addition to developing a low-cost solution for optical communications photon counting ground receivers, the RealTOR project has developed a field programmable gate array (FPGA)-based transmitter to test the RealTOR system, and is currently conducting subsystem integration, testing and demonstration efforts.

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 5) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.

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