Generalized spatial acquisition for a space-based adaptive communications node optical terminal

The DARPA Space-Based Adaptive Communications Node (Space-BACN) optical terminal will be a low-cost reconfigurable optical intersatellite link (OISL) terminal capable of supporting up to 100 Gbps low-earth-orbit (LEO) links. Rapid and reliable pointing, acquisition, and tracking (PAT) is critical to OISL performance, especially in cross-plane LEO links, where contacts can be short. The Space-BACN optical terminal will demonstrate a novel reconfigurable acquisition implementation, which can be dynamically configured to operate in one of three acquisition modes: in-band, out-of-band, and synthesized beacon. Here, we review the features, implementation, performance analysis, and verification approaches for each of the three acquisition modes.