Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Bryan M Reid

Don M Boroson

Bryan Shawn Robinson

Robert E Martinez

Mark Silver

Michael Chrisp

Alan Decew

Adam Shabshelowitz

Steven Constantine

Jamie W Burnside

Farzana I Khatri

An imaging system includes a metering structure and a plurality of foldable members disposed around a periphery of the metering structure. Each foldable member in the plurality of foldable members includes an arm comprising a strain deployable composite and a reflector disposed on the arm. The arm in a respective foldable member in the plurality of foldable members is configured to hold the respective foldable member toward the metering structure in a first state and to hold the respective foldable member away from the metering structure in a second state such that the reflector of the respective foldable member forms part of a sparse aperture in the second state.

Methods and apparatus for deployable sparse-aperture telescopes

Traditional satellite-to-earth data transmission systems are constrained by inefficient relay schemes and/or short-duration data transfers at low data rates. Communication systems described herein achieve extremely high burst rate (e.g., 10 Gbps or greater) direct-to-Earth (DTE) data transmission over a free-space optical link between a spacecraft and a remote terminal, which may be a ground terminal or another space terminal. The optical link is established, for example, when the remote terminal is at an elevation of 20&#xb0; with respect to a horizon of the remote terminal. In some embodiments, a data transmission burst contains at least 1 Terabyte of information and has a duration of 6 minutes or less. The communication system can include forward error correction by detecting a degradation of a received free-space optical signal and re-transmitting at least a portion of the free-space optical signal.

Network of extremely high burst rate optical downlinks

Traditional satellite-to-earth data transmission systems are constrained by inefficient relay schemes and/or short-duration data transfers at low data rates. Communication systems described herein achieve extremely high burst rate (e.g., 10 Gbps or greater) direct-to-Earth (DTE) data transmission over a free-space optical link between a spacecraft and a remote terminal, which may be a ground terminal or another space terminal. The optical link is established, for example, when the remote terminal is at an elevation of 20&#xb0; with respect to a horizon of the remote terminal. In some embodiments, a data transmission burst contains at least 1 Terabyte of information, and has a duration of 6 minutes or less. The communication system can include forward error correction by detecting a degradation of a received free-space optical signal and re-transmitting at least a portion of the free-space optical signal.

A satellite in low-Earth orbit (LEO) or medium-Earth orbit (MEO) with a modern image sensor and/or other remote sensing device can collect data at rates of 10 Mbps or higher. At these collection rates, the satellite can accumulate more data between its passes over a given ground station than it can transmit to the ground station in a single pass using radio-frequency (RF) communications. Put differently, the sensors fill the spacecraft's memory faster than the spacecraft can empty it. Fortunately, free-space optical communications signals can carry far more data than RF communications signals. In particular, a spacecraft can transmit over 1 Tb of data in a single pass using burst wavelength-division multiplexed (WDM) optical signals. Each burst may last seconds to minutes, and can include tens to hundreds of WDM channels, each of which is modulated at 10 Gbps or more.

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Chelmsford, MA, United States of America

Bryan M Reid