Ground Station Mixed-Signal PCB and SFP Ethernet-to-Optical Connector for the Deployable Optical Receiver Aperture (DORA) CubeSat

Abstract

The Deployable Optical Receiver Aperture (DORA) project at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in collaboration with Arizona State University (ASU) aims to demonstrate 1 Gbps data rate for crosslink communications among small spacecraft. There are numerous applications for this technology, including satellite swarms/ constellations, and surface to orbit communications. DORA allows a satellite’s primary mission to continue without requiring the satellite to reorient for communication, thus enabling missions to use low-cost, off-the-shelf Altitude and Determination Control Systems (ADCS). DORA meet these specifications by replacing the spacecraft’s traditional receiving telescope with incident-angle sensitive photodiodes to steer the onboard transmitting laser in the corresponding direction. The DORA optical ground terminal (OGT) will be stationed on the ground to communicate with the DORA CubeSat in flight. This thesis project will address the ground station analog and digital electronics and data transfer needed to deliver data received from the DORA CubeSat to its final destination for processing and storage. The ground station mixed-signal PCB (GS-MSPCB) will serve as the interface between the terminal’s FPGA and the optical ground station control components. The FPGA will connect via an enhanced small form-factor pluggable (SFP+) port to an SFP switch and Wifi-6 router so that data may be accessed wirelessly.