Since launch in May 2022, the TeraByte Infrared Delivery (TBIRD) mission has successfully demonstrated 200 Gbps laser communications from a 6U CubeSat and has transferred up to 4.8 terabytes (TB) in a pass from low Earth orbit to ground. This is the fastest downlink ever achieved from space. To support the narrow downlink beam required for high-rate communications, the payload provides pointing feedback to the host spacecraft to precisely track the ground station throughout the 5-minute pass. The space and ground terminals utilize fiber-coupled coherent transceivers in conjunction with an automatic repeat request (ARQ) system to guarantee error-free communication through an atmospheric fading channel. In this seminar, an overview of the TBIRD mission, results to date, and implications for future high rate lasercom systems will be presented.

Jesse Chang received SB and MEng degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT in 2018 and 2019 respectively. Chang is an Associate Staff engineer at MIT Lincoln Laboratory and contributed to the assembly, integration, testing and operational phases of several space to ground laser communication terminals, including the TeraByte InfraRed Delivery (TBIRD) laser communication demonstration.

Register for this event.